Medicine River

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 PEN OPEN BOOK AWARD AND THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

“[A] piercing new memoir. . . . Pember is perfectly positioned to write this book. . . . With a government that is rewriting history in real time, Medicine River stands as a testament to the truth.”—The New York Times

“Powerful. . . . An important work in the growing literature about the trauma those boarding schools inflicted on generations of Native peoples. . . . Pember’s journalism and advocacy [make] clear the scope and impact of one major pillar of this epochal injustice. . . . . It’s essential that stories like Pember’s stories are amplified and the momentum toward justice is sustained until such a time as it can be delivered.” —Los Angeles Times

“[This] book could not be more necessary or overdue, especially as we face yet another administration that refuses to reckon with the government’s role in the attempted destruction of Native culture. . . . Medicine River sings. . . . Stands as a moving witness to Pember’s family’s traumas and a rousing demand for accountability.” —The New Republic

“A cuttingly personal account of the history of . . . Indian boarding schools and a moving look at how Indigenous traditions and rituals can light the path for healing.” —NPR

“Incisive, heart-wrenching. . . . Pember decided to investigate her mother’s past in depth, connecting anecdotes to written records and other archival materials. The initial discoveries the journalist made pushed her to begin a project whose scope went far beyond her own family.”—Smithsonian

“A deeply reported and engrossing memoir detailing an American atrocity about which most Americans know very little.” —The Progressive

“[Pember’s] expertise is on full display here. There’s no one more equipped to cover the tragedy of boarding schools, their lasting legacy and the survivance of those forced to attend.” —Ms. Magazine

“Pember forces us to confront an age-old question that has only grown more timely in this political moment: How might we know where we wish to go when we do not first reckon with the past?”—Oprah Daily

“A deeply researched, but personal, account of the impact of life at [Native American boarding] schools. . . . The story told[,] it’s up to the rest of us to learn from it.” —The Cincinnati Herald

“Insightful. . . . Fascinating.”—Washington Independent Review of Books

“Pember has written a sprawling national history [and] found the claw marks of the American forced assimilation project all over her family tree. . . . She reminds us that there is no line between family history and national tragedies.” —The Daily Yonder

“A searing account of Indian boarding schools and the impact they continue to have on families, communities and cultures. . . . Medicine River is [Pember’s] magnum opus, a must-read for all people who long to see justice flow. . . . An unforgettable read.” —BookPage (starred review)

“A devastating history. . . . Weaving into her narrative her own mother’s experiences . . . Pember explores the psychological ramifications the schools had on subsequent generations. She comes to many quietly ruinous insights about the emotional neglect she herself suffered at the hands of her wounded mother. . . . Concluding with a searing call for accountability, this strikes a chord.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Pember’s] extensive research illuminates the attempted cultural erasure by government and religious institutions. Her mother’s story provides a heartbreaking, personal focus.” —Booklist

“[Pember’s] starkly honest, poignant writing will move many readers towards a greater understanding of U.S. history and the continued unjust suffering of Indigenous people. . . . A necessary read for everyone interested in participating in the vital work of acknowledgment and reconciliation.” —Library Journal

“Elegantly weaving together her mother’s stories, those of other boarding school students, and concise accounts of federal assimilationist policies and common institutional practices, [Pember] provides an informed and unsettling perspective on the schools’ individual and collective impact. . . . A gripping, often harrowing account of the personal and communal toll of cultural genocide.”—Kirkus

“Mary Annette Pember has left it all on the line. Through her, her Ojibwe ancestors speak boldly about how the US government has treated them and every Indigenous nation in these so-called-United States. I have never read a book that has changed me so profoundly. Pember not only points to what has been done, but also offers a way forward. Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book.” —Javier Zamora, author of Solito

“So much writing about historical trauma casts a vague, impenetrable cloud over its subjects’ lives. But with electric precision and rigorous care, Mary Annette Pember pierces through, illuminating the real mechanisms by which pain has accumulated and reverberated through generations of boarding school survivors and their descendants, as well all the beauty, love, and humor these same lives contain. In showing us how trauma is made, Pember helps us see that it can be unmade. ‘History flows through us,’ she writes, and nowhere has this idea been so well rendered as here, in this stunning, essential book.” —Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country

“Pember has written a searing exploration of the multi-generational trauma visited upon Native people by the boarding school experience, as well as a brilliant account of Indigenous survivance.” —Michael Witgen, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, author of Seeing Red

“I have a shelf full of books on the Indian boarding schools, but nothing quite like this one. Anyone who questions why the U.S. government has finally apologized for these schools and for its brutal assaults on Native children and their families should read Medicine River.” —Colin G. Calloway, Professor of History and Native American Studies, Dartmouth College

“Mary Annette Pember reveals that the trauma and rage of surviving the St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School permeates through the generations. Pember has chronicled a deeply personal and first-person account of the dark legacy of incarceration at a ‘civilized’ boarding school and how the trauma of those youngsters impact their living descendants. Pember tells us that resistance and accountability is attainable, and I believe her. This is an essential read.” —Devon Mihesuah, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, author of The Bone Picker

“A dauntless and visceral excavation of one family’s residential boarding school legacy. In Medicine River, we can see pain ripple through generations, eclipsed only by Mary Annette Pember’s courage and her conviction that, in the search for answers, we can heal.”—Anton Treuer, author of Where Wolves Don’t Die