Probably Ruby

a novel by Lisa Bird-Wilson

(Photo by George Gingras)

Read an excerpt

See also
lisabirdwilson.com
facebook.com

70,000 words
Finished books now available

RIGHTS SOLD

World (ex-Canada):
  Hogarth/Random House (April 12, 2022)
Canada: Doubleday (August 2021)
French Canada: Editions Hashtag (Fall 2023)

AN ADOPTED WOMAN'S SEARCH FOR HER INDIGENOUS IDENTITY

For readers of Tommy Orange’s There There and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Probably Ruby is an audacious, brave, and beautiful novel about an adopted woman’s search for her Indigenous identity.

Relinquished as an infant, Ruby is adopted by Alice and Mel, a less-than-desirable couple who can’t afford to complain too loudly about Ruby’s Indigenous roots. But when her new parents’ marriage falls apart, Ruby finds herself vulnerable and in compromising situations that lead her to search, in the unlikeliest of places, for her Indigenous identity.

Lifted from the mysterious Relationship Web at the front of the book, in separate chapters the people connected to Ruby spring to vibrant and unforgettable life. Together they create a map of Ruby’s life. All of them, one way or another, abandon her.

Probably Ruby explores how all of us find and invent ourselves. It’s a perfectly crafted novel, with effortless, nearly imperceptible shifts in time and perspective, exquisitely chosen detail, natural dialogue, and emotional control that results in breathtaking levels of tension and revelation, until Ruby finally connects with her roots.

“Ruby never disappoints with her big heart and outrageous sense of humor — and her resilient search for her own history.” — THE NEW YORK TIMES

“In a time when truth is coveted, ‘Probably Ruby’ is a refreshing reminder of the realities of forced Indigenous adoption and family separation. Bird-Wilson’s writing is at times poetic and ever compelling. We are fortunate to have her and Ruby among us.” — THE WASHINGTON POST

“Moving…. Vivid…. the fragmented nature lends a sense of verisimilitude to this painful story of a fractured family history, and readers will be carried along by Ruby’s vitality and perseverance. This is well worth a look.”
 — PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“A bighearted portrait of an Indigenous woman whose transracial adoption spurs a lifelong quest to discover—or perhaps create—her identity…. An unsparing exploration of the injustices wrought by misogyny and settler colonialism.” — KIRKUS REVIEWS

“In Probably Ruby, Lisa Bird-Wilson explores the deep vulnerability inherent in having no sense of one’s place in the world and particularly the Indigenous world. Bird-Wilson effectively captures the sadness, anger, loneliness and alienation that Indigenous children lost to the child-welfare system are plagued by as they search for a sense of meaning and identity. In turns raw, tender, funny, despairing and hopeful, Probably Ruby tells a story that needs hearing.” — MICHELLE GOOD, author of Five Little Indians

“[Bird-Wilson’s] writing is never didactic, always engrossing, and the protagonist is a complex, unforgettable character who will stay with you long after the last page has been turned. ‘Probably Ruby’ is a timely and important novel every Canadian should read.” — TORONTO STAR

“A poignant debut novel.” — READER’S DIGEST

“A searing fictional portrait of intergenerational trauma, embodied by the unforgettable Ruby and her search for her Indigenous kin. Adopted as a baby, Ruby spent her lonely childhood being told she was specially chosen but never believing it. As an adult, she copes by drinking hard and falling in love often, all the while searching for her origins. This is a heartbreaking and revelatory work about the meaning of family, and the pain we pass through generations, as inescapable as blood: ‘Fury and love as big as the prairie sky, edgeless, boundless. What was ever inherited without grief?’” — MACLEAN’S magazine

“Lisa Bird-Wilson holds all her characters with such compassion, even when they go spectacularly off-course, they remain sympathetic in this wildly electric novel. Each fragment builds a provocative mosaic, refusing easy redemption, embracing Ruby’s complex, volatile emotional landscape with masterstrokes of observation and insight.” — EDEN ROBINSON, author of The Trickster Trilogy

“It’s a brilliant piece that takes Indigenous literature in some fascinating new directions. Lisa is an extraordinary stylist, and this novel explores Indigenous women’s lives in a way that is empowering and that doesn’t follow the usual tropes of trauma and victimization. I think of her as a Michif Alice Munro.”
 — WARREN CARIOU, author of Lake of the Prairies

“The glass-shattering honesty in the voice, the half-hidden anguish that sears the page. Spare writing, sparing no one. The audacity of Lisa Bird Wilson’s writing—brave, taut, exacting—leaves the reader altered. This story made me catch my breath, made my heart flip-flop in my chest.”
 — LISA MOORE, 2017 Jack Hodgins Founders’ Award for Fiction Judge

ABOUT LISA BIRD-WILSON

Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Saskatchewan Métis and Cree writer whose work appears in literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies across Canada. Her most recent book, Probably Ruby (2021), is published internationally and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, for the Amazon First Novel Award, and won two Saskatchewan Book Awards including Book of the Year.

Her collection of short stories, Just Pretending (Coteau Books 2013), won four Saskatchewan Book Awards, including 2014 Book of the Year, was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award, and was the 2019 One Book, One Province selection.

Bird-Wilson’s debut poetry collection, The Red Files (Nightwood Editions 2016), is inspired by family and archival sources and reflects on the legacy of the residential school system and the fragmentation of families and histories.

Lisa Bird-Wilson is the past prose editor for Grain magazine as well as a founding member and chair of the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Writers Circle Inc (SAWCI)/ Ânskohk Indigenous Literature Festival. Lisa lives in Saskatoon and is the CEO of the Gabriel Dumont Institute, Canada’s first Métis post-secondary education and cultural institute.


Watch author Lisa Bird-Wilson talk about her novel, PROBABLY RUBY