Michelle Porter

Award-winning author Michelle Porter makes her fiction debut with an enchanting and original story of the unrivaled desire for healing and the power of familial bonds across five generations of Métis women and the land and bison that surround them. Written like a crooked Métis jig, A Grandmother Begins the Story follows five generations of women and bison as they reach for the stories that could remake their worlds and rebuild their futures. Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means. Allie, Carter's mother, is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward. This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters--including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land--heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

A Grandmother Begins the Story

Five generations of Métis women argue, dance, struggle, laugh, love, and tell the stories that will sing their family, and perhaps the land itself, into healing in this brilliantly original debut novel. Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means. Allie is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. And Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to loose herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward. This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters—including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land—heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

A Novel

Scratching River

"Michelle Porter's Approaching Fireis an incredible book - searching, finding and sharing the story of her great-grandfather, Métis fiddler Bob Goulet. Fittingly, there is such a music to this book: it moves in movements.".

Approaching Fire

Ponchianinho (Mestre.)

"An explanation of the aims, benefits, history, and origin of capoeira, history and origins, Essential Capoeira introduces Capoeira Regional and Capoeira Angola techniques and gives an introductory explanation of The Game, the hierarchy within capoeira, the mestres, and the grading system"--Provided by publisher.

Michelle Porter

About

Books

Join the club