Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cousins | 1992 | Paulette Jiles | Buy |
| 2 | North Spirit | 1995 | Paulette Jiles | Buy |
Paulette Jiles’s two non-fiction books both draw on her years living in Canada. Cousins (1992) traces her family history back through several generations, piecing together the stories of relatives scattered across the American South and Midwest. The book reads as part memoir and part genealogical detective story, with Jiles following paper trails and family legends to understand where she came from.
North Spirit (1995) describes a very different experience. In the 1980s, Jiles lived in a small Ojibwe community accessible only by float plane, located near the shores of Hudson Bay in northern Ontario. She worked with the community on a radio station project and wrote about the daily realities of life in an isolated settlement. The book is a firsthand account of a place most readers will never see, written without sentimentality or outsider romanticism.