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Becoming a Matriarch

By: Helen Knott
Narrated by: Helen Knott
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Publisher's summary

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Co-winner of the 2024 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature
Shortlisted for the 2024 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and the Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes (part of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes)

When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space.


Helen Knott’s debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award juries, readers, and listeners alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, in her highly anticipated second book, Knott returns with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy.

Having lost both her mom and grandmother in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of the women who raised her, but of the woman she thought she was.

Woven into this book are themes of mourning, sobriety through loss, and generational dreaming. Becoming a Matriarch is charted with poetic insights, sass, humor, and heart, taking the reader over the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa territory in Northeastern British Columbia, along the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, and straight to the heart of what matriarchy truly means. This is a journey through pain, on the way to becoming.

©2023 Helen Knott (P)2023 Knopf Canada
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Critic reviews

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
ONE OF INDIGO'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2023

“Profoundly moving. . . . With wit and courage, Knott takes the reader along her journey of self-discovery from the depths of loss and grief to rise as a matriarch herself.” Indiginews

Becoming a Matriarch is about the work of carving out a ‘beautiful space’ in a life where freedom and love can flourish. Helen Knott tells the story of the women in her family pushing up against the boundaries of gender, race, and class and, in so doing, Knott shows us that another way of living is possible. Her sentences are poetic and dazzling; they are little anchors the grieving can fasten themselves to—readers will surely return to them again and again.” —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A Minor Chorus

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