A Mind Spread Out On The Ground

Author: Alicia Elliott
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Canadian
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Source: Publisher
Publisher: DoubleDay Canada
First Published: March 26, 2019
Opening Lines: "He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose the way men in movies do whenever they encounter a particularly vexing woman."

Book Description from GoodReads: A bold and profound work by Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a personal and critical meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America.

In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight and understanding to the ongoing legacy of colonialism. What are the links between depression, colonialism and loss of language--both figurative and literal? How does white privilege operate in different contexts? How do we navigate the painful contours of mental illness in loved ones without turning them into their sickness? How does colonialism operate on the level of literary criticism?

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is Alicia Elliott's attempt to answer these questions and more. In the process, she engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, writing and representation. Elliott makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political--from overcoming a years-long history with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft dinner to how systematic oppression is linked to depression in Native communities. With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott extends far beyond her own experiences to provide a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future.

My Rating: 4 stars

My Review: Brutally honest and intelligent, emotional and eye-opening, Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott has written a collection of essays that discuss issues that have influenced, and continue to influence her life - from the mental health problems within her family, abuse and poverty to the effects of colonialism on generations of Indigenous peoples as a whole.

Elliott is insightful and both vulnerable and wonderfully unapologetic as she weaves her personal experiences with social critique. She adds bits of humour here and there and her anger is clearly felt and often articulated to the reader. 

This is not an easy read but it is a necessary one that shows how the effects of the past are on-going and cannot be swept under the rug with a quick apology if we are to ever fully achieve reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians. Hopefully, this book will help non-Indigenous people better understand the on-going legacy of colonialism, cultural genocide and oppression that continue to pervade our society.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to the publisher for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.