Try free for 30 days
-
Probably Ruby
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Dakota Ray Hebert
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Call Me Indian
- From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player
- By: Fred Sasakamoose, Bryan Trottier - foreword
- Narrated by: Wilton Littlechild
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL. After twelve games, he returned home. When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this man's journey to reclaim pride in a heritage that had been used against him.
-
Where the Dead Sit Talking
- By: Brandon Hobson
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his mother in jail, Sequoyah, a 15-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family. Literally and figuratively scarred by his unstable upbringing, Sequoyah has spent years mostly keeping to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface - that is, until he meets the 17-year-old Rosemary, another youth staying with the Troutts. Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American backgrounds and paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah's feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both.
-
-
Heartbreaking and beautiful
- By Red on 16-03-2024
-
The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings
- By: James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
- Narrated by: James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover indigenous wisdom for a life well lived in "The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings." Based on ancient teachings from the Anishinaabe / Ojibwe people, this spiritual translation of the sacred laws guides us toward Mino-bimaadiziwin, "the good life" – a life of harmony, free from contradiction or conflict.
-
Winter in the Blood
- By: James Welch, Joy Harjo - foreword, Louise Erdrich - introduction
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.
-
The Seed Keeper
- A Novel
- By: Diane Wilson
- Narrated by: Kyla García
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhota people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato - where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.
-
-
Amazing story
- By Anonymous User on 03-05-2023
-
When We Become Ours
- A YA Adoptee Anthology
- By: Shannon Gibney, Nicole Chung, Mariama J. Lockington, and others
- Narrated by: Angel Pean, Greta Jung, Elena Rey, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences.
-
Call Me Indian
- From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player
- By: Fred Sasakamoose, Bryan Trottier - foreword
- Narrated by: Wilton Littlechild
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL. After twelve games, he returned home. When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this man's journey to reclaim pride in a heritage that had been used against him.
-
Where the Dead Sit Talking
- By: Brandon Hobson
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With his mother in jail, Sequoyah, a 15-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family. Literally and figuratively scarred by his unstable upbringing, Sequoyah has spent years mostly keeping to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface - that is, until he meets the 17-year-old Rosemary, another youth staying with the Troutts. Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American backgrounds and paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah's feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both.
-
-
Heartbreaking and beautiful
- By Red on 16-03-2024
-
The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings
- By: James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
- Narrated by: James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover indigenous wisdom for a life well lived in "The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings." Based on ancient teachings from the Anishinaabe / Ojibwe people, this spiritual translation of the sacred laws guides us toward Mino-bimaadiziwin, "the good life" – a life of harmony, free from contradiction or conflict.
-
Winter in the Blood
- By: James Welch, Joy Harjo - foreword, Louise Erdrich - introduction
- Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.
-
The Seed Keeper
- A Novel
- By: Diane Wilson
- Narrated by: Kyla García
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhota people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato - where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.
-
-
Amazing story
- By Anonymous User on 03-05-2023
-
When We Become Ours
- A YA Adoptee Anthology
- By: Shannon Gibney, Nicole Chung, Mariama J. Lockington, and others
- Narrated by: Angel Pean, Greta Jung, Elena Rey, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is no universal adoption experience, and no two adoptees have the same story. This anthology for teens edited by Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung contains a wide range of powerful, poignant, and evocative stories in a variety of genres. These tales from fifteen bestselling, acclaimed, and emerging adoptee authors genuinely and authentically reflect the complexity, breadth, and depth of adoptee experiences.
-
The Warrior Within
- Own Your Power to Serve, Fight, Protect, and Heal
- By: D.J. Vanas
- Narrated by: D.J. Vanas, Kevin Basik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than an empowerment manual, The Warrior Within is a call to accomplish the world-changing work you were meant for by tapping into the power of the warrior spirit.
-
Perma Red
- By: Debra Magpie Earling
- Narrated by: Katie Anvil Rich, Jason Grasl
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the Flathead Indian Reservation, summer is ending, and Louise White Elk is determined to forge her own path. Raised by her Grandmother Magpie after the death of her mother, Louise and her younger sister have grown up into the harsh social and physical landscape of western Montana in the 1940s, where Native people endure boarding schools and life far from home. As she approaches adulthood, Louise hopes to create an independent life for herself and an improved future for her family—but three persistent men have other plans.
-
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
- By: Alicia Elliott
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent, visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas experienced by her so many Native people. Elliott's deeply personal writing details a life spent between Indigenous and White communities - a divide reflected in her own family - and engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, art, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, and representation.
-
House Made of Dawn
- A Novel
- By: N. Scott Momaday
- Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday, Darrell Dennis
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world - modern, industrial America - pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust.
-
-
Insightful and beautifully written
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-2024
-
Shutter
- By: Ramona Emerson
- Narrated by: Charley Flyte
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life.
-
Walking in Two Worlds
- By: Wab Kinew
- Narrated by: Joelle Peters, Wab Kinew
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the real world, Bugz is a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe.
-
Moon of the Crusted Snow
- A Novel
- By: Waubgeshig Rice
- Narrated by: Billy Merasty
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.
-
White Magic
- Essays
- By: Elissa Washuta
- Narrated by: Kyla García
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, "starter witch kits" of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning.
-
The Removed
- A Novel
- By: Brandon Hobson
- Narrated by: Gary Farmer, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, DeLanna Studi, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 15 years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation.
-
All the Quiet Places
- By: Brian Thomas Isaac
- Narrated by: Lincoln McGowan
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brian Isaac’s powerful debut novel All the Quiet Places is the coming-of-age story of Eddie Toma, an Indigenous (Syilx) boy, told through the young narrator’s wide-eyed observations of the world around him.
-
To Shape a Dragon's Breath
- The First Book of Nampeshiweisit
- By: Moniquill Blackgoose
- Narrated by: Charley Flyte
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions.
-
Earth Keeper
- Reflections on the American Land
- By: N. Scott Momaday
- Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most distinguished voices in American letters, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition. In this wise and wonderous work, Momaday shares stories and memories throughout his life, stories that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound spiritual connection to the American landscape and reverence for the natural world.
Publisher's Summary
An Indigenous woman adopted by white parents goes in search of her identity in this unforgettable debut novel about family, race, and history.
Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award • “Engaging . . . Ruby never disappoints with her big heart and outrageous sense of humor—and her resilient search for her own history.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A passionate exploration of identity and belonging and a celebration of our universal desire to love and be loved.”—Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers
This is the story of a woman in search of herself, in every sense. When we first meet Ruby, a Métis woman in her thirties, her life is spinning out of control. She’s angling to sleep with her counselor while also rekindling an old relationship she knows will only bring more heartache. But as we soon learn, Ruby’s story is far more complex than even she can imagine.
Given up for adoption as an infant, Ruby is raised by a white couple who understand little of her Indigenous heritage. This is the great mystery that hovers over Ruby’s life—who her people are and how to reconcile what is missing. As the novel spans time and multiple points of view, we meet the people connected to Ruby: her birth parents and grandparents; her adoptive parents; the men and women Ruby has been romantically involved with; a beloved uncle; and Ruby’s children. Taken together, these characters form a kaleidoscope of stories, giving Ruby’s life dignity and meaning.
Probably Ruby is a dazzling novel about a bold, unapologetic woman taking control of her life and story, and marks the debut of a major new voice in Indigenous fiction.
Critic Reviews
“In this time of crises and isolation, I’ve come to cherish Probably Ruby. It details legacies of struggle without giving in to spectacle. It illuminates, in language of deepest care and artistic exactness, the diverse relations and irreducible complexity of an unforgettable life. Lisa Bird-Wilson is someone I urge you to read.” (David Chariandy, award-winning author of Brother and I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You)
“Writing from the depths of her heart, Lisa Bird-Wilson has gifted us a passionate exploration of identity and belonging and a celebration of our universal desire to love and be loved.” (Imbolo Mbue, best-selling and award-winning author of How Beautiful We Were and Behold the Dreamers)