A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was a fantastic collection of essays on a variety of important topics. Highly recommended.

This is a book that once you start reading, you just want to devour. Alicia Elliott's writing has a way of really drawing you in, demanding your full attention, asking you the hard questions. And the way she weaves in other stories, facts, and her reflections on her own life in every one of these essays is incredible. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was an emotional journey of reflection, awareness, and teaching. As someone who doesn't read much non-fiction, it usually takes me a while to get through a book under this genre but if I could just focus all my attention on this one book for one day, it would have been completed the day I opened it. 

I think there's a lot to say about the ground that the author covers and the stories she shares with us about her own life. It takes vulnerability to do something like this, especially for topics as deeply personal as trauma, disordered eating, etc. And the points the author makes about colonialism, racism, poverty, the way so many of these systemic and societal issues are linked hand-in-hand hits everything right on the nose and makes a considerable impact on the reader, BIPOC or not. 

It also serves as a strong reminder of how lacking Indigenous voices still are in mainstream forms of media and when we talk about supporting minorities and historically oppressed groups. 

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a book I have and will continue to recommend to other readers. This was a fantastic read.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a collection of essays written by Alicia Elliott jam-packed with nuanced questions and perspectives. 

Alicia Elliott gives us a look into her life growing up as a child of an Indigenous man and a White woman. When I first picked this up, I was expecting to read about a series of events that affected and shaped the person she has become – one full of reflection, insight, and growth. I got exactly that and so much more. The author effortlessly discusses topics such as capitalism, mental health, epigenetics, food security, malnutrition, and sexual assault all set against the backdrop of colonialism. She digs deep into history and present-day events to provide factual context for how much has changed (or hasn’t). I’ve never read a collection of essays before and I was pleasantly surprised by how much of an educational experience it was. I absolutely loved her writing - blunt, unwavering, and empathetic.

What stood out to me was Alicia Elliot’s emphasis of the love that existed in her childhood home despite all of the blatant chaos that had Child Services lingering at their doorsteps like vultures waiting for the opportunity to take them away. She grapples with her mother’s mental illness, one that can never be fully defined by a single term no matter how much medicine tries, and its coexistence with her multiple roles as a wife, mother, sister, and loved one. Despite all that was imperfect about her life, there were moments of happiness and joy that she reminisces on lovingly. This acted as a reminder to me that it isn’t enough to paint our life in a single brush stroke, that within a canvas, there are layers that, when peeled back, uncover hurt intertwined with growth, loneliness with comfort, hate with love.

My favourite essays (though I love all) are: 
- Boundaries like Bruises
- On Forbidden Room and Intentional Forgetting
- Crude Collages of My Mother

This is definitely a book that prompts in-depth analysis and makes for a very interesting pick for your next book club discussion.

This was a lovely memoir of a Native woman in Canada. Poetically and beautifully written, I enjoyed the entire book.

I added this book to my "best of 2020" list without hesitation. The author is kind and gentle with her writing, even as she stares unflinchingly into the depths of mental illness. I found it to be very helpful with my own mental health and have already mentioned it specifically to several friends. Highly recommended.

A moving and well written work from a  woman who grew up in the  Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Ontario. She straddled two worlds; as a child of  a Native American father and White mother and moving back and forth between the US and Canada. To me this book was all about being between two worlds...mental illness vs mental health, poverty vs having enough. Her words are almost ghostly in their beauty and brutal honesty as Ms. Elliott chronicles the depression that insinuates itself  in her family member's lives.  When her father has what surely must be a very painful accident, he is stone-faced on the ride to the hospital. She writes, “Maybe I couldn’t map the pain on his face because he was always in pain.”  Devastating.

"This world does not belong to you; you are merely borrowing it from the coming faces."

Alicia Elliott's collection of essays is truly eye-opening into the Indigenous experience in Canada and the US. Equally funny and heartfelt, this book made me realize how our countries' pasts shape our present and how that continues to affect folks every day. I highly recommend this for anyone looking to learn more and to love more.

Not an easy read by any measure.  Alicia Elliott uses essays to present her history and thus is able to expand on themes and provide them with extraordinary depth.  As she is a superb writer, her scholarship is paramount, her grasp of science and the connections she makes are remarkable.  The density of her prose is one of the beauties of this book, her honesty and generosity, additional benefits.  But it is the truly eyepopping revelations that make a reader, particularly one from the United States in these days of protest and plague, sit up and take notice, and feel ashamed for not paying closer attention earlier.  For instance, I had no idea the extent to which members of Indigenous Tribes suffer in Canada.  And the current tribal members undergo the extreme sense of displacement, much as Tommy Orange spelled out in There There.  Together, these books give new meaning to the terms "diaspora," "Indigenous," and most particularly, "diversity."

This book is truly a must read for all Canadians (and Americans). While Alicia Elliott's collection of essays are specific to her experiences being Indigenous in Canada, the experiences of the aftereffects of colonization ring true in both Canada and the United States. I found this to be a part memoir with personal and part overview of the Indigenous experience in Canada from a broader scope. I think this blend works well because it includes stats and facts for those who want to know the specifics, and personal stories to show how the stats play out and affect an individual. This part is emotional and raw. This is honestly a fantastic book for anyone who is unfamiliar with the relationship between Canada and the Indigenous and its political and emotional landscape. 

I feel like I am the average person who is non-Indigenous, learned a bit about the history at school, and never made the emotional connection until much later. I personally loved that Alicia blended memoir and fact because it really drives home the message on how much Indigenous people still suffer from inequality (to put it very lightly) and trauma. I think this should be required reading, and I'm so glad that it is being published in the US now too.

This was an absolutely stunning collection of essays. I have to say that this is one of my favourite styles of non-fiction, a collection of personal essays that isn't quite a memoir but gives the reader a good look at the author's life and experiences. Elliott does just that in this book.

We get to see a really holistic view of what shaped Elliott's worldview as a child and into young adulthood, and I think the honesty she writes with is inspiring. She explores living with mental illness both personally and in the family, growing up poor, addiction and abuse, both physical and sexual. These are things that many of us can relate to, and her writing makes it so personal that we feel like we are living with her growing up.

There is one chapter in particular where Elliott invites us to examine the ways in which we are harmed or are being harmful in our own lives. This is an extraordinarily powerful practice that overwhelmed me with emotion, and I recommend this book to anyone if only for that chapter (but the rest of the book as well!).

I would consider this a MUST READ. Written with incredible prose and poise, Alicia Elliot shines light on oppression, racism, and generational trauma. I read this collection of essays one at a time, and each were incredibly powerful and poignant.

When I received word that I was lucky enough to be provided an ARC of this book by Netgalley, I was overjoyed - this has been a book that I've been looking forward to read for months and definitely one that I would have purchased myself (and frankly, still will purchase myself so I can share it with everyone in my life.)

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a collection of essays by Indigenous writer Alicia Elliott, dealing with colonialism, intergenerational trauma, oppression, mental illness, feminism, capitalism and many more issues. The intersectionality of her approach was masterfully done and I found myself tearing up more than once while reading her words and accounts of her and her peoples past and present. As an European, the sheer extent of the effects of colonialism (in North America specifically, in this case) is not something you're necessarily made aware of during your education - at the very least, not nearly in the extent that you should be. I firmly believe that the same is the case with North American audiences, which I would recommend this book to even more. It is our responsibility to not only condone racism, but actively work towards becoming an anti-racist society - and if this book doesn't touch your soul and teach you some more insight, I honestly don't know what would get through to you.

I found that the best approach to reading this book is reading it step by step, essay by essay, so you may really take some time and consider the new information, the most likely new viewpoint Elliott presents to the reader. This is not a light read, and it shouldn't be. It should hurt and make you question the status quo, it should make you angry, angry enough to want to burn the whole place down just to see if maybe, a more just world would rise from the ashes. But that's not the message here: By understanding the issues colonialism and generations of cruel oppression have brought about, by finally seeing them, we may hope to address them, to make our own world one that is more loving. It's not possible to eradicate the past, the violence that indigenous people have been subjected to and still are subjected to. We can only move forward and hope to ensure that in the future, there will be no violence left. Even though that's a dream that sometimes seems out of reach, especially with the current political climate in many places around the globe, it's a dream we must hold on to and actively work towards. 

This book touched me deeply and taught me so much, and I can't wait to pick up a copy of my own so I might share that with everyone who is willing to listen and revisit Elliott's words myself. Please read this.

A deeply sad and important OwnVoices memoir. Beautifully written and poignant, Haudenosaunee Canadian native Elliott describes her family life and a blistering critique on colonialism in a vulnerable memoir that should be widely read. Her own battles to simply get this book published is quite astonishing. If you appreciated works by N Scott Momaday (Earth Keeper, House Made of Dawn) or Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass), this should be your next read.

This book was super good. It was super original and I flew through it. It didn't feel like anything I've read in the past. Can't wait to read more from the author!! This book was unputdownable.

A Must Read for 2020! So many poignant topics:  mental illness, racism, indigenous rights, poverty, and more. Add this to your TBR immediately!

This is one of the most thought-provoking collection of essays I have read in a long while. Reflective, well-researched, and intimate, Alicia Elliott weaves stories from her own life as well as the Indigenous community to showcase the complexities of the Indigenous identity. Elliott never claims her experience to be reflective of Indigenous populations, but she backs various experiences from her life to prove a point that she’s by no means an isolated case. Nearly every essay points out the severe repercussions of colonialism and capitalism, as well as how insidious they are in society. She especially makes clear their impact on Indigenous communities, as well as how the inevitable trauma that comes with such oppressive forms is (and to borrow her wording) “pathologized.” While these essays are deeply personal, they are also argumentative, as Elliott asks us firmly to meditate on society’s failure to discuss these nuances of oppression.

What makes this collection so powerful is how Elliott enforces the importance of intersectionality when it comes to identity. There is a tendency in society to discuss one’s lived experiences and identities as mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, and as Elliott demonstrates, there are complicated layers that that bleed into one another. Elliott does a brilliant job to guide the reader through such complexities that I believe would make for a great introduction for anyone who would like a better understanding of intersectionality.

Elliott explores myriad topics such as mental health, colorism (specifically the advantages of being close to whiteness), abuse, and poverty. She shares a mixture of facts and personal anecdotes to solidify the importance of these topics through an Indigenous lens; a much needed perspective as we continue conversations on anti-racism and decolonization.

In the style of memoir essay, award winning and bestselling Canadian author Alicia Elliott shares her riveting debut collection: “A Mind Spread Out On The Ground” (2020). Ms. Elliott has received acclaim for her voice in North American and Indigenous Literature, her articles and short stories have been featured in several notable publications including the Washington Post, she lives in Brantford, Ontario.

The Haudenosaunee indigenous Confederacy extends from a Syracuse N.Y. region into Aboriginal Ontario Canada. Ms. Elliott was raised in a large family by her Haudenosaunee father, often on the Six Nations Reservation. Elliott’s white devout Catholic mother, considered it as an advantage if her children   passed for white. The family was impoverished and moved frequently, her mother’s mental illness didn’t help. When Elliott’s mother was well, she lavished her children with attention; meals were cooked, the laundry and household chores were completed. Elliot’s father didn’t hesitate to have her mother hospitalized when she became irrational, delusional, and paranoid. Her family lived in constant fear of coming under scrutiny of Social Services, which targeted indigenous people. It was unfortunate that her entire family was banned from their grandparent’s home, due to untreated head lice, which further traumatized her childhood.

Food insecurity is a known fact for poor and some indigenous families. American farmers receive government subsidies to grow wheat, corn, and soybeans that also contribute to vast corporate profiteering  in the manufacture of high fructose corn syrup, hydrolyzed soy protein and refined carbohydrates. Cheap inexpensive foods flood the market that feed the poor throughout the U.S. and Canada found in the unethical fast-food and grocery industry. “Food Inc.” (2008) a documentary highlighted diet related conditions of obesity, diabetes and heart disease: Elliott recalled peanut butter and food bank cereal that sustained her family and how poor families self-medicate with sugar and junk food the way other people do with alcohol and drugs.

Elliott raised awareness of racial injustice against indigenous people, including an incident involving her own rape. All charges that she reported of violent criminal felony acts were dismissed. A Canadian indigenous mother of three, Cindy Gladue, was viciously murdered (2015). At the court trial she was further victimized and her family traumatized. The murderer was acquitted of all charges. Due to public outcry over so much racial injustice against people of color, leading to mass protests and social unrest across the U.S. and Canada, there remains a hope for change. ~ **With appreciation to Melville House Publishing via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a book of essays from Alicia Elliott, an award-winning Indigenous writer from the Onkwehonwe tribe. Born in the United States, Alician moved with her family to the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Ontario when she was 13. With no running water. 

Eventually her white “settler” mother (who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was in and out of mental health facilities), would go on to have 8 children with her Haudenosaunee husband. Although Alicia and many of her siblings are “white-passing,” they experience intergenerational trauma all the same. 

In each powerfully written narrative, Alicia shares very important (and very uncomfortable) subjects. Among them: colonization, interracial marriage, diaspora, mental illness, poverty, teenage pregnancy, trauma, food instability, disordered eating, sexual assault, systemic oppression, and much more.

In one of her shorter essays regarding boundaries, Alicia writes a thank-you/love letter to her husband (who is a white “settler”). In it, she talks of their interracial, “nation-to-nation” love:  

“We untangle the threads of history and treat the wounds we find underneath. We listen to one another, support one another, resist our impulses to rewrite one another, to steer one another. We try to understand our distinct physical, emotional, spiritual and mental needs and meet them as best we can. Antiracism is a process. Decolonial love is a process. Our love is a process. I never want it to end."

Additionally, in her essay on food instability, she shines a light on the intergenerational blame Native Americans receive, despite being colonized by the very white folks who displaced them: 

“The ways Indigenous peoples deal with our trauma, whether with alcohol or violence or Chips Ahoy! Cookies, get pathologized under colonialism. Instead of looking at the horrors Canada has inflicted upon us and linking them to our current health issues, Canada has chosen to blame our biology, as those very genes they’re blaming weren’t marked by genocide, too. This is how a once thriving, healthy population comes to be “inherently unhealthy.” It wasn’t the genocide that centuries of Canadian officials enacted upon us that was the problem; it was how we reacted to the genocide. It was our fault, our bodies’ fault.”

These candid, vulnerable essays should be required reading for anyone who has grown up in North America. Especially for those of us who never understood how deeply colonization has affected those who first inhabited "Turtle Island."


Special thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, do I ever live in a Canadian bubble, well just a bubble in general. I am just now reaching out of that bubble to learn more about the world around me by reading more non-fiction. Well, Canadian Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott has opened my eyes to a few subject matters with her powerful, thoughtful, honest and moving collection of essays.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is my first experience reading a collection of essays from an author, and I had no idea how much I would find essays as interesting, insightful and enjoyable as I did theses. Alicia Elliott covers a bit of ground here with the subject matter she explores. I usually would find that a bit overwhelming, but I enjoyed the format with a single subject matter per essay. I took my time reading and stopped to think about each essay and take notes along the way. I thought Alicia Elliott gave her personal opinion and argument well with thoughtful insight, depth, wit and heart. Her brilliant use of metaphors adds some understanding and depth to her thoughts on the subject matters. She draws on her own experiences as she explores colonialism, racism, mental health, abuse, sexual assault, poverty, malnutrition, capitalism parenthood and writing. There is a recurring theme of colonialism throughout it that is brilliantly weaved in through them. The essays flowed smoothly and connected well into each one.

Alicia Elliott's voice is gentle, informative and understanding with her frustration and anger. Her words are deeply moving, and it was easy to pick up on the mood of each essay and her attitude towards each subject matter. She is boldly honest with her truths and her insight about each subject and she gave me a bit to think about with each essay. She shares a part of herself with us while sharing her thoughts on each subject matter. Her writing is inviting to form our own thoughts, and she invites us to challenge our assumptions. At times I did want to argue with her in my head with some of my assumptions; however, I reminded myself these are her experiences, her opinions, thoughts and arguments, not mine. So I silenced that noise in my head and listened to what she had to say. I am so glad I did. I highly recommend it.

Alicia Elliott recounts her experiences as a mixed-race Indigenous woman living in both Canada and the United States in a series of personal essays. She seamlessly sets her family's struggles with poverty and mental health against the backdrop of cultural history, colonialism and cultural genocide.

This book was well-written and cohesive, but I did not enjoy it. It took the form of long form semi-autobiographical essays which I found tedious to complete. Every essay seemed to drag on for pages more than was necessary to get the story and the point across. This would be a great read for those who enjoy long form essays, but it just didn't grab me.