When helping organize Read by the Sea, a local literary festival, I discovered David A Robertson, an Indigenous highly-acclaimed author of an outstanding amount of books. When I first reached out, with some other invitations sent, the request was for him to read from The Theory of Crows, a fictional novel, though based on other authors, and to my delight, he replied very quickly to say absolutely! I was thrilled, and got busy searching for books I could read of his and looking at reviews.
With unexpected changes to our line-up of Canadian authors, I soon switched to asking him to read from his newest book and mental health memoir All the Little Monsters and was thrilled he said yes to that, too!
A bit of a side-story, I love quotes and recently discovered this one:
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
After the festival I dove into All the Little Monsters and, to my surprise, this very same quote was referenced, and even tattooed on David. While I didn’t see the tattoo or have much of a chance to chat with him, this alone makes the journey I’ve been on with him stand out, among many other reasons including my own experience with anxiety, depression and mental health.
While I was reading this book, my husband was watching the much talked about We Were Liars show on Amazon Prime so I was startled to see David refer to the show/book in his, too. It just seems too coincidental to be anything but serendipitous and I love serendipity.
I also love David’s authenticity, transparency and ability to say yes to things when they take him very far out of his comfort zone. Personally, I am also elated that he started off self-publishing his work despite all of this and made an outstanding career out of it.
It was also wonderful to read that David was a basketball player and Ultimate Disc player as my son, Wild Willie, is too. While not getting into his story, as that is his to tell, his journey through sports has been an amazing one I am proud to witness. I am definitely passing along this book to him for his enjoyment and education. And also recommend this book to you, dear reader, for your growth and motivation to keep doing things that scare you and, most of all, to talk about them. Not everyone who does great things is brave.
Thank you for joining me on this installment of Canadian author David A Robertson.
And thank you, again, for reading,
Sarah Butland