Acquire From The Ashes: My Story Of Being Métis, Homeless, And Finding My Way Formulated By Jesse Thistle Shown In Edition
is a very moving memoir, in which Jesse Thistle relives his life in short chapters, . . espousing lessons hes learned, errors hes made, milestones hes achieved, dreams hes kept, relationships hes broken and rekindled,
The writing is straight forward and matter of fact, It is interspersed with heartfelt emotions, creative descriptions, ingenious metaphors, heart wrenching anecdotes,
Memoirs are one of my favourite genres to read and this one is riveting in both its storytelling and its message, Interspersed with the storytelling are a few of Jesse Thistles poems which are equally captivating,
Abandoned as a young child, growing up often lonely, Jesse continued maintaining the bonds of brotherhood and family even when tested, Living with the unimaginable pain of homelessness and drug addiction he found a way to honor the lessons taught to him by his grandparents,
Much of the storytelling bluntly delivers devastating narratives describing life in shelters, correctional facilities, or rehab, without dwelling on the facts as “oh poor me” but rather to enlighten and to display the authors resilience, akin to the spiritual powers of his indigenous ancestors.
Jesse at one time tried to deny his ancestral history, but has since learned to embrace it,
Jesses story is really quite remarkable providing a complete aboutface from where he was heading to where he ends up, He explains that he often lived through his challenges by managing only minutes at a time, The telling of this story will surely inspire others to reach deep into themselves and find something both worthwhile and worthy not only when they are facing difficulties but also when they are just looking for everyday answers to lifes questions.
This book also focuses on the continuing challenges of our indigenous population and the systemic discrimination from which they suffer, A most enlightening read and a call to action for Canadians,
An immediate and important memoir from a Métis man who experienced homelessness and addiction after his parents abandoned him, Jesse Thistle writes about how even though he and his brothers eventually went on to live with his grandparents, their shelter and care did not prevent his later suffering.
He ends the memoir on a note of hope about how he reclaimed his Indigenous heritage and set himself on the path to healing and success,
I loved the brutal vulnerability Thistle imbues in this memoir, He writes in great, vivid detail about his struggle with homelessness and his substance use disorder, At the same time, in a showing and not telling way, he portrays how intergenerational trauma, toxic masculinity, corporal punishment, and other oppressive forces contributed to the individual choices he made that exacerbated his physical and mental anguish.
His journey to recovery at the end of the book felt both empowering and realistic, with little false sentimentality,
I appreciate Thistles voice given the stigma surrounding homelessness and addiction, I hope that we can all take action to treat those suffering with compassion and to address the structural issues e, g. , antiIndigenous racism, patriarchal gendered socialization of boys and men that contribute to these dilemmas, In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistleonce a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholarchronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is.
If I can just make it to the next minute, . . then I might have a chance to live I might have a chance to be something more than just a struggling crackhead,
From the Ashes is a remarkable memoir about hope and resilience, and a revelatory look into the life of a MétisCree man who refused to give up.
Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the fostercare system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known.
Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, but their toughlove attitudes meant conflicts became commonplace, And the ghost of Jesses drugaddicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member, Struggling, Jesse succumbed to a selfdestructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless, One day, he finally realized he would die unless he turned his life around,
In this heartwarming and heartbreaking memoir, Jesse Thistle writes honestly and fearlessly about his painful experiences with abuse, uncovering the truth about his parents, and how he found his way back into the circle of his Indigenous culture and family through education.
An eloquent exploration of what it means to live in a world surrounded by prejudice and racism and to be cast adrift, From the Ashes is, in the end, about how love and support can help one find happiness despite the odds.
I don't often rate books on Goodreads but feel compelled to write this one because, one week later, I'm still digesting this read, I finished this book over the course of three days on a recent trip because I couldn't put it down, From The Ashes provides a powerful truthtelling of what far too many Indigenous children and adults endure within the settler state that is Canada, While the book is a heartwrenching narrative, there were often tearjerking and uplifting points of light, places along the way where Jesse finds his path through, Jesse's story is one of weathering hardships the likes of which many Canadians will never know but the inspiration readers will take with them after finishing the last page will endure.
My Canadian friends on Instagram firmly placed From the Ashes on my radar, Its a compelling memoir of Jesse Thistles life, a finalist for the CBC Canada Reads awards, and the top selling Canadian author in,
Jesses background is MétisCree, and his story begins quite early in his life, Hes living with his two brothers, as well as his parents who have a volatile and unstable relationship, Eventually Jesse and his brothers are placed in his paternal grandparents custody, and for quite some time, he doesnt know where his mother or father are,
Little by little, Jesses life goes more and more astray however, his story is about overcoming those hardships, He truly comes full circle in the book, even finding himself in familiar locations with people he once knew, who no longer know him, once hes recovered, Jesse also finds love. A deep, abiding, healing love along the way,
I can definitely see why this book is receiving accolades, I was invested in Jesses story and shared many highlights and notes, I especially enjoyed the parts where he was figuring out who he was, and how important his familys indigenous roots are to his own identity,
Jesses story isnt pretty, In fact, its raw and completely open, a story of defeating addiction and finding oneself in the process,
I received a gifted Kindle copy from Goodreads, but Ive already bought my own physical copy for my shelf,
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: sitelinkwww, jennifertarheelreader. com and instagram: sitelinkwww, instagram. com/tarheelreader.Stars.
I applaud Jesse thistle for overcoming his addictions and making a better life for himself, It was definitely a harrowing journey to get there,
Its hard to rate a memoir, The authors road to recovery deserves aStar, The writing to me deserved aStar,
This book does shed light on how addictions lead to bad choices lead to homelessness lead to destructiveness, The authors early childhood trauma escalated into his dependency on drugs, The drug crisis in our world is so devastating, It ruins so many people, I am so happy that the author was finally able to find a way out, This is a gutwrenching autobiography about a man Jesse Thistle who descended into relentless depths, He was addicted to all kinds of drugs and alcohol anything to get a high and to remove himself from the real world and what he could not face in himself.
He was homeless many times, He stole from all kinds of stores to get food, money, alcohol and any commodity to trade for drugs,
He was a prime example of someone surrounding himself by enablers who kept reinforcing his habits, Finally, after some unsuccessful attempts he kicked his addictions at a rehabilitation clinic in Ottawa, Canada, I think he realized he had reached rockbottom and it was either pull himself out of the addictions or die despairing and lonely on the street,
Jesse Thistle gives us his background he was raised at a young ageyears old by his grandparents from his fathers side, His parents abandoned him when he was young, in fact he and his two brothers were removed from his fathers care because he was unable to look after his sons due to his addiction problems.
He never saw his father after this, Apparently, he died virtually unknown, on the streets from being homeless, His mothers life is a little evasive, Now and then she reached out to her sons, but there was a distance that was never overcome,
I felt the authors family, particularly the grandparents who raised him and his two brothers were emotionally detached, They never spoke or confronted the real issues like what happened to their son the father of the three boys, I realize I say this being way outside of the sphere of their lives, The grandparents must be given credit for adding some stability and providing a home to the three boys,
It is indeed commendable that Jesse Thistle has extricated himself from darkness and freefall, He also had a lot of help and we can see the value and the struggles that rehabilitation clinics and hostels undergo for their clients,
In many ways the author has a lot to atone for he hurt emotionally a lot of people through his robberies of liquor stores, Mom and Pop grocery stores, breaking and entering cars and homes, and letting down family and friends.
During rehabilitation he became more aware of his ancestry, His mother is Metis and also his grandmother fathers mother, He studied avidly and is now an associate professor of Metis Studies at York University in Toronto, I can only wish him well on his new life path, Its quite a transition and shows that we should never give up on hope for a new day! This is yet another example of Can lit that is championed by the Canada Reads competition, where the authors life story is tremendously powerful, altogether heartbreaking and inspirational, but the writing does not hold up as well as it should.
Despite this, I did appreciate the rawness of Jesse Thistles memoir, and his willingness to be frank and honest about his experiences with homelessness, poverty, addiction, mental health and reconciliation.
I walked away from this book with a renewed sense of compassion, and also further convinced that the solution to Canadian societys problems does not lie in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.
Rather we should continue to invest in programs that will lift people out of poverty, provide compassionate treatment for mental health and addiction, and advocate for meaningful reconciliation and additional means of support for the Canadian Indigenous population.
Absolutely incredible!
to come,
Bone grinding on wire: that is my morning cup of coffee, that is what wakes me up every day, and that is what reminds me that the fall from my brother's apartment window was real and that I'm lucky to be alive.
The pain also keeps me sober, It reminds me what it was like years ago when addiction and homelessness almost did me in, For that, and those harsh reminders, I am thankful,
When it comes to memoir, redemption stories tend to make me feel good and especially stories about people heroically overcoming challenging childhoods, sitelinkFrom the Ashes looks like this kind of a feel good story Jesse Thistle and his brothers were abandoned by their parents, raised by strict and unaffectionate grandparents, with Jesse going on to twenty years of drug addictions and homelessness before hitting bottom, getting an education, and becoming a professor himself but this read left me a bit nonplussed.
The storytelling is episodic with many short chapters telling of incidents from Jesse's life without introspection or much linkage between them this happened, then this and I didn't find that satisfying until an endnote in which the author explains that this is how his memories from deep youth and his drugaddled years appear to him, “like fragments of light, flickers of a flame, shadows on a wall.
” That seems an authentic explanation, but doesn't make the reading any more satisfying, And as pitiable as Jesse's street years were, I couldn't help but continually note how every negative consequence was the result of his own choices: Jesse's brothers, with the exact same upbringing, went on to become contributing members of society, while Jesse himself was lying and stealing and hurting himself and others for decades when I read how Jesse taught others how easy it is to scam Social Services, over and over again, for a thousand dollars at a time in apartment “startup” money that they could then use to buy crack, I couldn't help but feel resentful: I acknowledge that homelessness is a serious issue in desperate need of resources and shudder to think of all that money up in smoke.
Even those events that led to Jesse's reintegration into society his battle to educate himself, the love and support of a stable life partner, and his rediscovery of his Indigenous identity don't feel like they were given adequate attention: this happened, then this happened, and it's hard for the reader to see how one thing follows the other.
Still, there is plenty of value in this read: So many of us recoil when we encounter the dirty and wildeyed on the street and it's always valuable to be reminded that within that broken shell remains a human being someone who just might eventually rise from the ashes if the right opportunities and motivations align.
Grandpa's anger that day wasn't usual it was the same rage I saw when he warned me about doing drugs after he told me about Dad's disappearance and it scared me so much that I bawled in my room as Josh received the beating of his life.
I lay on my bed
and covered my ears with my pillow to hide from the sound of the rod thrashing through the air, In my head, I begged for Josh to cry out, but he kept it together somehow, I knew it was to show he was a man the way Grandpa liked, but that only made things worse, After what sounded like thirty more blows, Josh finally bellowed out in agony, It was a sound so sad it penetrated right to where I was hiding, right through the concrete foundation of our house,
Jesse Thistle's first memories are of going berry picking with his kookum his maternal grandmother an “allotment Métis” who, with her husband, lived in a shack on undesirable public road allotment land who sometimes watched her grandsons while her daughter went off with the boys' abusive father.
Jesse's parents eventually split up, with his mother taking the boys and trying to make a home for them in Moose Jaw, but when their father later showed up and asked for the boys, the exhausted mother handed them over.
He took them back to Ontario, but as a drug addict, he rarely had food for the boys, teaching them,, andyearsold how to beg for change and steal food from the corner store and hide from anybody who came to the apartment door when he was away for days at a time.
Eventually picked up by Social Services, the boys were put into the care of their paternal grandparents this Grandma was part Algonquin, but Indigeneity doesn't seem to have been a part of her culture and while they did provide their grandsons with food and shelter and discipline throughout their childhoods, this grandfather who had himself been raised by a strict and abusive grandfather had firm expectations and a quick temper.
In reaction, all three Thistle brothers became brawlers in the neighbourhood and at school, but it would seem that only Jesse would be set on a path of habitual lying, thievery, and bullying.
Even as his brothers were turning their lives around as teenagers, Jesse didn't apply himself in school and began partying and taking drugs the absolute zerotolerance rule that their grandfather laid down after the heartbreak of the boys' father's disappearance.
When Jesse was found with drugs in their home at eighteen, his grandparents kicked him out and completely cut him off over his next twenty years of homelessness and drug abuse, trips in and out of prison and rehab, Jesse received no support, visits, or contact with his grandparents and very little contact with his mother throughout the years.
And yes, the path Jesse travelled was a hard one, and I have no idea if he inherited more of his Dad's offtherails genes than his brothers did, but throughout, he chose this path and suffered that choice.
There was a silence that came over my spirit, followed by what sounded like a gust of wind, The noise of the rave receded into the background, and I heard something emerge from my own core, My eyes pressed shut, I focused inward on that sound, There was a distant drum louder, louder, louder still, until it vibrated every molecule in my being, The beautiful cry of Indian drummers rang aloud in every direction from the north, south, east, west, up, down, over, under, beneath, within, and without, I opened my eyes and saw I was dancing alone on the flatness of the great plains, I was dressed in a plume of feathers, deerskins, a bustle, beads, moccasins, a rattle, and tassels, My legs rushed in perfect coordination over top of the grass, pressing and tamping it down, as vast fields undulated before me, The sun hung low as red clouds of dust were kicked up by my feet, filling the air, I danced and danced, moving this way and that, until my thirst for water and the rave seemed but distant memories of a life I once lived,
I did find it very interesting that, more than once, Jesse would have these outofbody Indigenous experiences and not always while tripping on ecstasy, He once had a vivid nightmare about fighting redcoats on the prairies and was astonished to learn many years later that the details meshed with the Battle of Batoche, and that he was related to the famed Métis rebel Louis Riel and other noted resistance fighters.
From the Ashes doesn't make an explicit link between Jesse's rediscovery of his Indigenous heritage and his blossoming into a man who feels his own worth after years of hurting himself not in the way that Richard Wagamese does in sitelinkOne Native Life or Wab Kinew in sitelinkThe Reason You Walk, but it does note that it was while beginning to study Indigenous issues at university that Jesse was put on a path to becoming today's foremost expert on Métis history and Indigenous homelessness he is the recipient of many academic awards and fellowships after teaching himself to read while in jail.
That is a feel good story, and I wish I could pinpoint what it is in the writing that left me underwhelmed, I am still thankful that Jesse Thistle shared his life story this is the kind of honesty and insight that makes you hope that someday his lost brethren from the streets might also be redeemed.
Four is a rounding up, .