Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk

Poet and lyricist LaPointe pens her powerful debut book about struggling into adulthood with the baggage of childhood trauma. She was born into the Coast Salish peoples of the Pacific Northwest, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and her memoir interweaves the legends, struggles, and traditions of her ancestors on the land that she now occupies. LaPointe narrates the audiobook herself, and the audio could have been more tightly edited, but the authenticity of LaPointe’s telling her own story more than validates the recording. Parts are heartbreaking, yet she rises out of instability, out of being a person without housing, and out of childhood trauma, to find her way using Coast Salish healing techniques and her love of punk music. Often, LaPointe’s voice rises in indignation as she points out the hypocrisy of the white society that displaced Coast Salish peoples. The author is young, and her full life is yet to play out; listeners of this audiobook will want to know more as she finds her way in the literary world.