Jesse Thistle - From the Ashes: My Story of Being Indigenous, Homeless, and Finding My Way

#1 International Bestseller

My Story of Being Indigenous, Homeless, and Finding My Way

From the Ashes

Jesse Thistle

Blown away by From the Ashes. An eloquent memoir of Mtis life and surviving the streets.

Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room

Blown away by [this] eloquent memoir of Mtis life and surviving the streets.

EMMA DONOGHUE, New York Times bestselling author of Room (via Twitter)

From the Ashes is an illuminating, inside account of homelessness, a study of survival and freedom. Jesse Thistle delivers a painfully lyrical book, a journey through the torrents of addiction and trauma, masterfully sliding in humor and moments of heart-expanding human connection. I found myself gasping out loud at parts, unable to put the book down. Jesses story shows us that there is nothing that cannot be transformed.

AMANDA LINDHOUT, New York Times bestselling coauthor of A House in the Sky

The best stories are the ones that stay with you. From the Ashes will stay with me for a long time. Maarsii to Jesse for coming through to tell this story. It is an important one. The revolutionary kind. The kind of story that changes how you look at the world, that shows us how amazing human beings can be, so capable, strong, resilient, powerful.

KATHERENA VERMETTE, internationally bestselling author of The Break

A memoir of resilience, spirit, and dignity from a gifted storyteller. It is, at heart, also about the many shapes that love can inhabit. When you plan to read this book, clear your schedule. It will hold you in its grasp and wont let you go, like a great novel. Its all the more remarkable that this is not fiction. This book will stand out in my reading experience for a long time to come.

SHELAGH ROGERS, OC, host and producer of CBC Radio Ones The Next Chapter

So fortunate to have the opportunity to read From the Ashes Youll be drawn into the life journey of someone whos struggled so deep yet has risen up to share with us what it means to be human. A deeply moving read.

CLARA HUGHES, Olympian and author of Open Heart, Open Mind

In spare and often brutal prose Thistle weaves a narrative punctuated with joy and comedy and ultimately redemption.

Toronto Star

A gritty memoir recounting the devastating long-term effects of childhood abandonment The theme of estrangement is powerfully portrayed in what is ultimately a story of courage and resilience certain to strike a chord with readers from many backgrounds.

Library Journal

Jesses story is shocking, intriguing, and compelling. He goes deep into the conflicting forces pulling him in different directions, the pain of knowing how he was letting down his grandmother, the terrifying sickness of addiction, and his own uncertainty about how to break the cycle. All the decks were stacked against him, yet he did learn to make the right choices. He had every right to blame the system, but he never resorted to that easy strategy. His unexpected strength is remarkable.

CHARLOTTE GRAY, award-winning biographer and internationally bestselling author of The Promise of Canada

[This] powerful and moving memoir is also a scathing indictment of the treatment of indigenous people and the myriad ways systems fail them.

Booklist

This is a work that should not be mistaken for a redemption storyit is a love story. About family. Community. A partner. Most of all: this is a love story about Jesse Thistle. How he came to love himself. Why he is worthy of love. And, importantly, how you will love him when you are done reading. This book signals change: in our understanding of worth, our compassion in the face of harm and self-harm, and the power and possibility that can exist in spaces we try to forget about. Jesse Thistle is amazing. His story is stunning. We will talk about colonial and other violence differently on Turtle Island because Jesse lived them and shared them with us. With an openness, candor, and generosity that is inspiring. Its uglybeautiful/hurtlove will resonate with you long after you finish turning the pages. I am proud to call him nismis (my little brother).

TRACEY LINDBERG, internationally bestselling author of Birdie

A courageously heartfelt journey from profound self-destruction to redemption.

Kirkus Review

Thistle makes an especially valuable contribution in todays growing national conversation about the historic and systemic racism of Black, Brown and Native American peoples, the driving force behind the out-of-proportion rates of homelessness, police brutality, deficient health care, incarceration rates, uneven administration of justice, and inadequate education in our nationall these issues are covered in glaring honesty and brutal truth. A must-read for all Americans, but especially for educators, policy makers, and frontline workers.

Dr. Sam Tsemberis, creator of Housing First, CEO of the Pathways Housing First Institute, and clinical associate professor at UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

In this page-turner of a memoirraw, honest, gripping, wrenching, and inspiringJesse Thistle gifts us with an intimate and bracing look into the realities, traumas, and triumphs of indigenous life in todays North America.

Gabor Mat, MD, bestselling author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

This book is dedicated to the families whose loved ones are taken, or disappeared, or lost to them. Those forever watching for their loved one to return home. I watch and wait with you.

It is also dedicated to Indigenous children who grew up with no sense of themselves through projects like the Sixties Scoop, residential schools, adoption, or other such separation from their nuclear family during which they were robbed of their Indigenous identity through no fault of their own.

The pages of this book speak to the damage colonialism can do to Indigenous families, and how, when ones Indigeneity is stripped away, people can make poor choices informed by pain, loneliness, and heartbreak, choices that see them eventually cast upon the streets, in jail, or wandering with no place to be. I dedicate this book to you. I walk with you. I love you. I know the loneliness and frustration you endure.

Lastly, I dedicate this book to my wife, Lucie, who loved me back into the circle. This also goes out to my brothers, Josh, Jerry, and Daniel; my mom and dad; and to my grandparents, who gave me a fighting chance. Our circle is strong; our fire burns; this book is but a torch from the hearth of our clans, and is hopefully enough to light the way for others to follow.

at night

alone

when the dope sickness set in

and the begging became too humiliating

Id wander from the ByWard Market to the Centennial Flame fountain on Parliament Hill

looking for respite from my addictions.

ashamed

i sat with my back to the Peace Tower

thrust my hand in the cool fountain water

fishing out the hoard of coins thrown by tourists and passersby.

the RCMP who guarded the fountain

always saw me coming

from way down at the bottom of the Rideau Hill

near the Milestones and Chteau Laurier

but he never stopped me.