Review of From the Ashes: My Story of Being Indigenous, Homeless, and Finding My Way, by Jesse Thistle, 2019. New York: Atria Books. Paper, 349 pages.
Jesse Thistle and his two brothers have a difficult start, with a mother who gives them up to his father, a drug addict who does not feed or protect the boys. Jesse is the one who suffers the most. He tells his life story in this thorough account of growing up, being abandoned, enduring years of loss and sadness, using drugs and alcohol, almost getting killed, almost dying, and at the very end of the book finally waking up and taking control of his life.
The author describes in great detail each and every stage of his life, including his early years with his two brothers, their drug-addicted father, their mother who gives them up, the foster family that abuses the boys, the grandparents who show them tough love, and the street people who are both Thistle’s best friends and his worst enemies.
This book includes Thistle’s gripping tale of the harsh realities of discrimination, homelessness, hunger, and abandonment so common among Native Americans (and other groups) but especially Indians who are more likely than other groups to face these challenges.
The settings are all northern – Thistle comes from Saskatchewan -- and spends time in northeastern Canada at the end of the years covered by the book. It takes him most of his life to learn about his ancestry and his people’s place in the north country – including their participation in colonial and then modern-day Canada.
The sequences showing his hunger and his addiction are very gritty and real, and his hospital stays and dangers are described in great detail. Someone who has never lived in a car and who has never started losing their weight (and their hair) because of hunger will be shocked at “how far down” he spirals in his years of wandering, using, stealing, begging, and somehow surviving.
Thistle falls – almost to his death – and injures his foot, an injury he must deal with for a long time. He wakes up in a bar with his pants off, and realizes how he has been injured there. He sleeps in a car and one day he decides he must move on and try to get home.
Sdaly, Thistle takes many long detours and spends years going down the wrong roads. He eventually meets a wonderful and strong woman who loves him and encourages him. The story has a happy ending, though getting to it is an adventure and a miracle.
He becomes a professor of American Indian History and studies the story of his ancestors who have helped shape the country.