Structure

Heart Berries is divided into eleven chapters, an introduction, and an afterword. As the introduction and afterwords are written by different people, they stand even further apart from the structure of the main narrative than prefaces and epilogues often do. While the introduction otherwise follows a typical introductory format which introduces the material to come, the afterword is in the structure of a question-and-answer interview. This slightly unusual format allows the author to speak about her work in her own words, but those words are guided and framed by the questions of another. As such, the afterword may potentially explore ideas and topics which the author might not have addressed unprompted. Both the introduction and the afterword contextualize the rest of the manuscript within the context of contemporary indigenous literature, thus offering a frame or a lens through which the reader may view the work itself.

The...