Join Romeo District Library for a discussion with The Mason House author T. Marie Bertineau as part of the 2022 Romeo Reads program.

After her father's untimely death, Theresa faced a rocky and unstable childhood. But there was one place she felt safe: her grandmother's house in Mason, a depressed former copper mining town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Gram's passing leaves Theresa once again at the mercy of the lasting, sometimes destructive grief of her Ojibwe mother and white stepfather. As the family travels back and forth across the country in search of a better life, one thing becomes clear: if they want to find peace, they will need to return to their roots.

The Mason House is at once an elegy for lost loved ones and a tale of growing up amid hardship and hope, exploring how time and the support of a community can at last begin to heal even the deepest wounds.

About the Author

Born amidst the copper mining ruins of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, T. Marie Bertineau is an Indigenous author of Ojibwe-Anishinaabe and French Canadian/Cornish descent. She is a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the L’Anse Reservation, migizi odoodeman. Her work has appeared online with Minnesota’s Carver County Arts Consortium; in Mino Miikana, a publication of the Native Justice Coalition and Waub Ajijaak Press; and in the annual journal U.P. Reader. Marie’s quarterly column, “Hankies in My Pocket: Tender Thoughts from the Keweenaw,” can be found on Carrot Ranch dot-com, home of Carrot Ranch Literary Community. Her debut memoir The Mason House (Lanternfish Press 2020) was named a 2021 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan. Married and the mother of two, she makes her home in the Great Lakes Region.