A Grandmother Begins the Story

By: Michelle Porter

Narrated by: Michelle Porter, Jani Lauzon, Tara Sky, Tantoo Cardinal, Dakota Ray Hebert, Bernard Starlight, Elle-Màijà Tailfeathers, Wesley French, Jenny Pudavick, Lisa Cromarty, Monique Mojica, Alison Deon, Jacob MacInnis, Yolanda Bonnell, Brefny Caribou

Award-winning author Michelle Porter makes her fiction debut with an enchanting and original story of the unrivaled desire for healing and the power of familial bonds across five generations of Métis women and the land and bison that surround them.

Written like a crooked Métis jig, A Grandmother Begins the Story follows five generations of women and bison as they reach for the stories that could remake their worlds and rebuild their futures.

Carter is a young mother, recently separated. She is curious, angry, and on a quest to find out what the heritage she only learned of in her teens truly means. Allie, Carter's mother, is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born, and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her join her ancestors in the Afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons before the fire inside burns her up, with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the Afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward.

This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, funny, wise, confused, struggling characters—including descendants of the bison that once freely roamed the land—heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

Audiobook is read by a full cast:

• Mamé - Tantoo Cardinal (she/her)
• Geneviève - Jani Lauzon (she/her)
• Velma - Tara Sky (she/they)
• Lucie - Monique Mojica (she/her)
• Allie - Lisa Cromarty (she/her)
• Carter - Jenny Pudavick (she/her)
• Bio Sister - Kiawentiio (she/her)
• Solin - Michelle Porter (she/her)
• Dee - Alison Deon (she/her)
• Tell - Jacob MacInnis (they/them)
• Grasslands - Elle-Màijà Tailfeathers (she/her)
• Perkins - Bernard Starlight (he/him)
• Lottery - Dakota Ray Hebert (she/her)
• Bets (the Volvo) - Yolanda Bonnell (they/she)
• Slavko - Wesley French (he/him)
• Pam - Brefny Caribou (she/her)

©2023 Michelle Porter (P)2023 Algonquin Books

Critic reviews

“A Grandmother Begins the Story will leave you forever charmed and soulspun. What a vision. What courage to blow a hole through all expectations of what a story can be and how it's told, and what a masterwork from a voice I'd follow anywhere. This is why we read and this is why we write: to discover places and voices and visions like these.”—Richard van Camp, award-winning author of Godless but Loyal to Heaven and The Moon of Letting Go

“Deeply imaginative and utterly captivating. Michelle Porter’s storytelling pushes genre boundaries in a way that will surprise and delight readers. The prose is tight, and the characters are unforgettable. I don’t think I understood the term “unputdownable” until now.”—Carleigh Baker, award-winning author of Bad Endings

"Michelle Porter’s novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story, is charged with huge blasts of imaginative force—magical in every way. In this novel, divided families come together, there are wise bison, and dogs with opinions, an Indigenous family history spanning generations. Here is heaven and then, what the rest of these vivid characters must contend with, life on earth, with all its splendor and heartbreak. Porter is sometimes knee-slappingly funny, sometimes wry, poignant, nuanced, and gleefully irreverent. But this novel is full of reverence for the most important things: music and stories. Porter’s characters are tough and tender, courageous and flawed, and so true to life you’ll go back to the beginning as soon as you turn the last page, because you can't stand for it to be over. Michelle Porter’s voice is unique, uber-alive, utterly gorgeous. Just, WOW!" —Lisa Moore, award-winning author of This is How We Love and Caught

lots to think about

I happen to like fiction by Native American authors that pull together the stories, the culture, and the modern-day environment in which they are living. This one does a particularly good job of that and gives us a lot to chew on. If I had one complaint it would be that it took me almost the whole book to figure out exactly who was whose daughter, granddaughter etc.

A Challenging Spiritual Journey

This book is one of a kind. Presenting five generations of Metis women and at least four generations of bisons, switching between reality and the Afterworld, it challenges the reader to meditate on big existential topics, such as rebirth, continuity of the soul, family, kin, love, forgiveness, collective memory, all brought together by the power of storytelling. Performed on multiple voices, representing different characters, the book creates an immersive experience, where different sentient (and even non-sentient) beings come on stage to fulfill their part in their journey, as well as in everyone else's.
I loved the Grassland character and found the bisons' evolution charming.

Exceptional story and narration

One of the finest listens I’ve enjoyed. An incredible gift of a story, fine narration by every actor. This has become one of a few treasured all-time favorites.
Thank you to the author and narrators - what a pleasure!

Wrapped up in story

A beautiful telling in many voices that weave their way into our hearts…
This gorgeous beaded tale blends sorrow and joy, magic and stark reality, colorful humor and love that gathers us, like a herd, into a circle, to shelter us from the storm.

So creatively imaginative.

I liked the whole story, it is very original. I liked that each character had its own narrator.