Métis writer, poet and Grain Magazine prose editor Lisa Bird-Wilson joins award-winning Chilean author Lina Meruane in captivating conversation on the ripple effect of childhood trauma on the generations of family, and the journey to catharsis. Meruane presents her latest novel, Nervous System (translated to English by Megan McDowell), an extraordinary clinical biography of a family, full of affection, resentment, dark humor, buried secrets and one woman’s journey through the systems that both hold them together and atomize them. Bird-Wilson’s perfectly crafted Probably Ruby uncovers the title character’s quest to find her Indigenous identity in unlikely places after a tumultuous childhood in the foster care system.

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