CHARACTER
The Berry Pickersby Amanda Peters

Character Overview

This cast spans two entwined families shaped by a single disappearance in the Maine berry fields. A Mi'kmaw household endures decades of grief and resilience, while an adoptive family lives under the weight of a stolen secret. Through dual narrators and a circle of kin, the novel traces memory, identity, and the possibility of repair.

Main Characters

The story is told in two voices: a brother and sister separated as children whose lives circle back toward each other.

Joe

Joe narrates a life marked by loss, beginning the day his four-year-old sister vanishes and continuing through the later death of his brother Charlie—wounds that calcify into lifelong guilt and anger. As an adult, he isolates himself near the fields where he last saw Ruthie, his unresolved trauma erupting into violence that drives him from his wife, Cora, and their daughter, Leah. Yet his love for family is stubborn and protective, grounded in the quiet strength modeled by his father, Lewis, and the steadfast hope of his mother. Returned home by terminal illness, he finally seeks reconciliation—reuniting with Leah and witnessing Ruthie’s return—finding a measure of peace at the end. His arc is a stark study of Memory and Trauma and the long road of Guilt and Atonement.

Ruthie (Norma)

Ruthie, raised for decades as Norma after being abducted from the berry fields, narrates a quieter, inward journey toward self-knowledge. Suffocated by the anxious, possessive love of her adoptive mother, Lenore, she grows up haunted by “dreams” of campfires and laughing siblings that are really submerged memories. With the gentle aid of Aunt June, and despite her kind but passive adoptive father, Frank, she gradually uncovers the truth of her origins. Her reunion with Joe and her Mi’kmaw family restores her name and history, transforming her from a lost daughter into a found one. Her trajectory embodies the search for Identity and Belonging.

Supporting Characters

Mae

Mae is the tough, pragmatic older sister who grows from a rebellious teen into the family’s anchor. She cares for their aging mother and for a dying Joe, her bluntness masking fierce love. As the de facto matriarch, she keeps the family’s daily life intact when grief threatens to undo them.

Ben

Ben, the eldest brother, channels the trauma of residential school into activism and unwavering hope that Ruthie will be found. Protective and principled, he steadies his siblings—especially Joe—through years of uncertainty. His sighting of Ruthie at a Boston protest is a crucial spark that keeps the family’s faith alive.

Lenore

Lenore, Norma’s adoptive mother, is the desperate catalyst whose grief over miscarriages culminates in kidnapping. Loving yet controlling, she builds a home ruled by secrecy and fear, relying on June to maintain the lie. Her decline into dementia loosens the secret’s grip, making space for truth and exposing the corrosive toll of Secrets and Lies.

Lewis

Lewis is the dignified patriarch, a steady provider who shoulders prejudice and tragedy without spectacle. Protective and principled, he will confront authority—like the Indian agent Mr. Hughes—to keep his children safe. His death before Ruthie’s return deepens the family’s unresolved sorrow.

Joe's Mother

Joe’s mother is the family’s spiritual center, sustaining them with Catholic faith after Indigenous traditions were stripped away. Despite losing two children, she never stops believing Ruthie is alive, her hope binding the family across decades. The mother-daughter reunion fulfills the promise of her steadfast love.

Aunt June

Aunt June, Lenore’s sister and Norma’s closest confidante, bridges Norma’s sheltered life and the wider world. Long complicit out of loyalty and fear, she ultimately chooses truth, guiding Norma toward her birth family. Her turn from secrecy to honesty becomes a quiet act of atonement.

Minor Characters

  • Frank: Norma’s adoptive father, a kindly judge whose passivity enables Lenore’s deception; he even forges a birth certificate to support the lie.
  • Charlie: Joe’s older brother, beaten to death at a carnival while defending Frankie; his killing intensifies Joe’s rage and guilt.
  • Mr. Ellis: The white owner of the Maine berry fields, who treats Mi’kmaw laborers as interchangeable, embodying casual racism and economic control.
  • Frankie: A fellow picker dismissed as a “harmless drunk,” whose vulnerability draws Charlie’s fatal defense, making him a tragic hinge in the family’s past.
  • Alice: June’s close friend and partner, a therapist who gives young Norma a journal, unknowingly preserving fragments of Ruthie’s buried memories.
  • Cora: Joe’s wife, whose loving marriage is shattered by his violent outburst; she raises Leah alone in the wake of his absence.
  • Leah: Joe and Cora’s daughter, who meets her father on his deathbed and offers him a final chance at grace.
  • Archie Johnson: A rival Mi’kmaw picker whose brothers help kill Charlie, entangling the families in a legacy of senseless violence.

Character Relationships & Dynamics

The narrative orbits two families reshaped by one act: Ruthie’s disappearance hollows out her Mi’kmaw household even as her arrival as Norma grafts her into a home built on secrecy. In Joe’s family—parents Lewis and Mother; children Ben, Mae, Charlie, Joe, Ruthie—grief fractures sibling bonds in different ways: Ben turns pain into activism and steadfast hope, Mae into caretaking grit, and Joe into isolation and anger. Their collective love, however, remains a lifeline, with Mae and Mother keeping the home’s rhythms and Ben sustaining belief that draws Ruthie back.

Within the adoptive household—parents Frank and Lenore; child Norma; aunt June—love is entwined with fear. Lenore’s possessiveness closes doors and windows, while Frank’s silence stabilizes the lie rather than challenging it. June stands between them and the outside world, ultimately choosing Norma’s wellbeing over loyalty to Lenore.

Across the divide, Joe and Ruthie form the story’s central axis: siblings bound by memory, separated by violence and secrecy, and reunited in time to restore what can be salvaged. Their meeting softens old antagonisms—Joe’s estrangement from Leah, Mae’s frustration with his self-destruction—and releases the adoptive family from the lie’s long shadow. The broader community frames these dynamics: exploitative employers and indifferent authorities heighten the family’s vulnerability, while Mi’kmaw kinship networks and acts of protection (like Lewis confronting Mr. Hughes) model solidarity in hostile terrain.

Character Themes