From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way

From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way (2019) is a memoir penned by Métis-Cree author and scholar Jesse Thistle. He chronicles his life and experiences with addiction, crime, and living on the streets and how he eventually overcomes a lifetime of trauma to rediscover his culture and identity through education. The book explores themes of heritage and identity, choice and circumstance, and what home encompasses.

Thistle is an assistant professor in humanities at York University, Toronto. From the Ashes is his debut book and won numerous awards, including the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction and the Indigenous Voices Award.

This guide is based on the Simon & Schuster Kindle edition.

Content Warning: From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way contains mentions and descriptions of violence (especially domestic abuse), racism, sexual assault, substance use and addiction, suicidal ideation, and a suicide attempt.

Plot Summary

From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way is divided into four parts. Part 1 focuses on Jesse Thistle’s early years. His father, Sonny Thistle, has a substance addiction and abuses Jesse’s mother, Blanche Thistle (née Morrissette). Blanche leaves Sonny, taking their three sons with her, of whom Jesse is the youngest, but Sonny arrives not long after to take the boys with him, claiming he is clean and has a steady job. However, Sonny continues to spend all his money on drugs and alcohol, leaving his young sons alone for days to fend for themselves. The boys beg and shoplift to survive.

Eventually, Sonny is arrested for robbery, and his sons are taken in by the Children’s Aid Society. They live in a foster home for a while, before their paternal grandparents, Cyril and Jackie Thistle, take them in. As Jesse readjusts to life in Brampton with his grandparents, he struggles with his Indigenous identity, as he does not know much about his heritage.

In Part 2, Jesse describes being raised by his grandparents, who are loving but stern; Grandpa in particular is a proponent of tough love and uses corporal punishment to discipline the boys. Blanche, who has a young son, Daniel, with another man, visits the Thistles; Sonny never appears again, despite the family waiting for him every Christmas. Grandpa eventually tells the boys that despite being released from prison, Sonny is addicted to drugs once again. Grandpa warns Jesse that if he ever does drugs, he will disown him.

Jesse struggles with school, regularly getting into fights and falling into a gang of boys that smoke, drink, and shoplift regularly. By his late teens, Jesse is drinking and using and selling drugs regularly. For a brief period, he gets a job and becomes more responsible while dating a girl named Karen. However, Grandpa forbids him from buying a car at 19, and an insulted Jesse burns through his own savings in revenge, parties intensively, and eventually breaks up with Karen. When Grandpa discovers Jesse has been using, he throws him out of the house.

Part 3 details Jesse’s life on the streets as he moves across the country, alternatively living in shelters, on park benches, and on the couches of friends and family. He supports himself through working temporary jobs, as well as stealing and shoplifting when he is out of work. He briefly reunites with his mother’s family when he attends his oldest brother Josh’s wedding but refuses his mother’s offer to live with her in Saskatoon.

Jesse’s addiction to drugs worsens, and he becomes more involved in criminal activity. In the beginning of the year 2000, two men he knows murder a cab driver and try to frame him. Jesse goes to the police and loses respect among his usual crowd, who brand him a “rat” and lure him out to different places to attack him. Distraught at the disintegration of his social network, Jesse attempts suicide but survives. Shortly after, he injures his leg when he tries and fails to scale the wall of his brother’s apartment building, with whom he is temporarily staying.

After surgery, Jesse’s leg constantly gets reinfected. Desperate for a place to stay, he robs a convenience store and turns himself in to the police; in jail, Jesse’s leg finally heals, and he briefly sobers up. However, once he gets out, he returns to crime and his drug addiction reoccurs. After numerous arrests, Jesse finally decides to enter rehab.

Part 4 focuses on Jesse’s recovery from addiction. At Harvest House, a Christian rehabilitation center, he works hard at completing his GED (General Educational Development tests) and getting sober. He reconciles with Grandma shortly before she passes away from cancer, and he also reconnects with his mother and old friend Lucie, whom he falls in love with. Once Jesse completes his rehab, he moves to Toronto to be with Lucie and eventually reconciles with Grandpa as well, who passes away six months after Grandma.

With Lucie’s support, Jesse achieves his dream of going to university, where he studies Indigenous history to learn more about the problems that plague his community and make sense of his own past and choices. Through his academic work, he reunites with his mother’s family, who teach him about his Métis-Cree ancestry and help him rediscover his identity. Jesse marries Lucie and graduates from university, becoming a respected scholar in his own right. The physical and psychological pains of his past continue to haunt him, but with Lucie’s support, he is able to bear both. The pain in his leg is a constant reminder of how lucky he is to be alive. Years later, Jesse visits the streets he once used to frequent, finally feeling like he does not belong there anymore.