15 Canadian books to read about mental health
CBC Books | | Posted: May 7, 2019 3:54 PM | Last Updated: January 29, 2020
Here are 15 Canadian books that deal with mental health.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott
Alicia Elliott explores the systemic oppression faced by Indigenous peoples across Canada through the lens of her own experiences as a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. Elliott examines how colonial violence, including the loss of language, seeps into the present day lives of Indigenous people, often in the form of mental illness. Elliott, who lives in Brantford, Ont., won gold at the National Magazine Awards in 2017 for the essay this book is based on.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground was on the shortlist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Elliott is a Tuscarora writer living in Brantford, Ont. She was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the recipient for the 2018 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. CBC Books named Elliott a writer to watch in 2019.
Angry Queer Somali Boy by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali
Angry Queer Somali Boy is a memoir by Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali, a young man who left Somalia, spent time in the Netherlands and ended up homeless in Canada. Canada was the promised land, but when he didn't fit in and life was more difficult than he expected, Ali turned to drugs and partying before finding his way.
Angry Queer Somali Boy combines Ali's personal story with the history of and commentary on the places he's called home: Somalia, Europe and Canada. It's his first book.
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
Jesse Thistle has earned many honours for his work in academia, including the 2016 Governor General's Silver Medal. He is also a Trudeau and Vanier Scholar. He specializes in Indigenous homelessness, a topic he understands all too well. Abandoned by his parents and raised by his difficult grandparents, Thistle struggled with addiction as an adult and spent 10 years homeless. He shares his story of overcoming his circumstances in the memoir, From the Ashes.
Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me by Anna Mehler Paperny
Anna Mehler Paperny is a journalist who has struggled with depression her entire life. After a suicide attempt in her 20s, she decided to look into her disease: how it's caused, treated and talked about. Part memoir, part investigation, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is a examination of an illness that is far too common and far too little understood.
Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me was on the shortlist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Paperny is a Canadian journalist. Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is her first book.
Be With by Mike Barnes
When Mike Barnes became his mother's caregiver after she began showing signs of dementia, he started writing daily reflections about the stress he experienced. These reflections eventually formed the basis of his new book, Be With: Letters to a Caregiver, which is a collection of vignettes and reflections on caring for his mother.
Barnes is a Canadian-American writer who has published more than 10 books, ranging from poetry collections to novels to nonfiction. His first short story collection, Aquarium, won the Danuta Gleed Award.
To the River by Don Gillmor
When David Gillmor disappeared more than 10 years ago, his truck and cowboy hat were found at the edge of the Yukon River. His body was recovered six months later, just as his brother Don Gillmor journeyed to Whitehorse to canoe through the waters his brother had departed from. To the River explores how survivors of suicide cope with a loved one's decision to take their own life by looking at Gillmor's brother's story and the larger social, cultural and psychological questions surrounding suicide, especially among middle-aged men.
To the River won the 2019 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction.
Gillmor is a Toronto journalist and author of novels and nonfiction books like Canada: A People's History. He has twice been nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in the young people's literature — text category for The Fabulous Song and The Christmas Orange.
Waiting for First Light by Roméo Dallaire, with Jessica Dee Humphreys
Romeo Dallaire saw the horrors of the genocide in Rwanda up close when he was a Canadian general representing the UN. He wrote about the experience in the seminal book Shake Hands with the Devil. He followed that book up with Waiting for First Light, which discusses how Dallaire struggled with PTSD in the years after his time in Rwanda and how the experience impacts him and his mental well-being to this day.
Waiting for First Light was a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize.
Dallaire is a Canadian humanitarian, retired senator and general. He has written three books, Shake Hands with the Devil, Waiting for First Light and They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children. He was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2002.
Fire Song by Adam Garnet Jones
Fire Song is a YA novel adaptation of Adam Garnet Jones's award-winning film of the same name. Following his sister's suicide, Shane, a gay Indigenous teenager in Northern Ontario, struggles to support his family. Shane is eventually forced to choose between his family's home and his own future.
Jones is a Canadian filmmaker and writer. Fire Song is his first book.
That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung
In That Time I Loved You, residents of a small suburban neighbourhood in Scarborough, Ont., take turns describing the aftermath of a series of shocking suicides in their community. These interconnected short stories explore a wide range of experiences — racism, homophobia, domestic and sexual abuse — revealing that hard truths can be hidden within a well-kept home.
Carrianne Leung is an educator and fiction writer from Toronto. She is also the author of the novel The Wondrous Woo.
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
Terese Marie Mailhot traces her life story from a dysfunctional upbringing on Seabird Island in B.C., with an activist mother and abusive father, to an acceptance into the Masters of Fine Art program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. This slim poetic volume packs a powerful punch in just 140 pages.
Heart Berries was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Mailhot is in the creative writing faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where she graduated with an MFA in fiction. Heart Berries is her first book.
The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong
This dark, witty and touching memoir by Vancouver-based writer Lindsay Wong takes a look at the impact of mental illness on families. Wong delivers an honest and emotional look at whispered secrets, dysfunctional relationships — and how her grandmother, mother, aunt and even herself initially blamed the mythical "woo-woo," Chinese spirits that plague the living, for their mental health issues. The memoir is equal parts blunt, honest and hilarious.
The Woo-Woo was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was defended on Canada Reads 2019 by Joe Zee.
Wong is a writer from Vancouver. The Woo-Woo is her first book. Her YA novel, My Summer of Love and Misfortune, will be published in May 2020.
Dear Scarlet by Teresa Wong
Teresa Wong pens an honest and emotional letter to her daughter in Dear Scarlet. The comic describes her experience with postpartum depression — how feelings of sadness, loss and guilt consumed her — and her many attempts at healing.
Wong is based in Calgary. Dear Scarlet is her first book. CBC Books named Wong a writer to watch in 2019.
Brother by David Chariandy
David Chariandy's Brother takes us inside the lives of the mixed heritage sons of Trinidadian immigrants. Rooted in Chariandy's own experience growing up as a person of colour in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, the novel is a beautiful meditation on discrimination, agency, grief and the power of human relationships.
Brother won the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the 2018 Toronto Book Award and the 2018 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. The book was defended by Lisa Ray on Canada Reads in 2019.
Chariandy is based in Vancouver. He is also the author of the novel Soucouyant and the nonfiction book I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter.
Break in Case of Emergency by Brian Francis
Break in Case of Emergency follows Toby Goodman, a teen whose father left their small town before she was born and whose mother dies by suicide when she's a young girl. When she finds out that her estranged father is coming back to town and wants to meet her, Toby must try to make sense of her life amid surprising revelations about her family history.
Break in Case of Emergency was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
Brian Francis is a writer and columnist for The Next Chapter on CBC Radio. His first novel, Fruit, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2009. He is also the author of the novel Natural Order.
The Ghost Garden by Susan Doherty
Susan Doherty shares the stories of the patients at the Douglas Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Montreal where the author has been volunteering for a decade. One of the patients is a woman in her 60s named Caroline Evans (a pseudonym), whom Doherty has known since childhood. Caroline describes how her schizophrenia began to surface in her teenage years and the ways she's been failed by the Canadian health and justice system.
Doherty is a writer based in Montreal. She is also the author of the novel A Secret Music.