Soft As Bones: A Memoir by Chyana Marie Sage Review by Jonathan Fletcher, Interview by Tiffany Troy

Soft As Bones: A Memoir by Chyana Marie Sage

Review by Jonathan Fletcher

Interview by Tiffany Troy

Publisher: House of Anansi Press, Inc. 

Publication Date:

ISBN: 978-1487013028

Pages: 277

Reading Chyana Marie Sage’s newly released memoir, Soft As Bones, the word that repeatedly (and indelibly) comes to mind is improbably.  In fact, this is a memoir of which the statistical probability of success is so low that it should not exist.  More soberingly, though, the author herself should, statistically, not exist, either, so persistent and dire the risks she, an indigenous Canadian writer (specifically, Cree, Métis, and Salish), finds herself before at various points in her life, as well as the seemingly insurmountable challenges she encounters and overcomes.  As a case in point, as Sage recounts toward the end of the memoir (reflecting on the lessons imparted by her father or, as Frank, as she later refers to him by), “…I have had to run from men in cars a few times: once when I was twelve and once when I was twenty-three.  Another time I had to run from a man, and it’s fucked up, but if I wasn’t still partly that fearful young girl, would I have been alert enough to run in time?” (219).  

Thankfully, however, Sage survives.  Thankfully, this memoir exists.  Though replete with betrayal and heartbreak, Soft As Bones is also full of insight and growth, even transformation.  For every story of anguish, there is a moment of revelation.  For every loss, there is also something gained.  And there is also, and strikingly, indigenous religious practices, creation stories, and tribal wisdom throughout.  In fact, each section of the memoir opens with a Cree term followed by its English approximation (e.g., “Pinikanew / Her Bones Ache Right Through to the Marrow”).  Every chapter also begins with a Cree term followed by not only an explanation but a connection to the scenes, “characters,” and themes within.  For example, as the author describes in one of the earlier chapters (this one opening a scene in which a ten-year-old Chyana visits her father in prison), “Púkoopāo is when he goes into the water, but it was more than that; he was fully submerged in the way that a human would float within a cloud, drowning in the very air around him” (53). Though certainly instructional for those unfamiliar with the Cree language/community, the incorporation of such linguistic explanations into the text provides essential cultural context.  

As important as it is to read Soft as Bones as a memoir, it is equally so to understand it as an indigenous one and, in doing so, appreciate the refreshing subversiveness of the existence of the text itself.  Like the creation stories Sage carefully (and effectively) places throughout, her memoir is not simply an act of recounting and relating events that happened to her (as is doubtful any successful memoir is), but is rather a deliberate act of admirable imagination and creativity.  Unlike the opposite of truth, however, each proves necessary where lacunae in memory exists or a devastating lie is discovered (her father’s abuse, a case of the latter).  In this sense, Soft as Bones is no less a creative endeavor than a poem or novel, however different the needs and effects of each.  Maybe it’s no coincidence, then, that Sage also works in the genre of the former, having published a couple of collections of poetry.  It should thus come as no surprise that in the memoir itself, poetic flourishes abound.  For example, in the second page of the book, the author (acknowledging the inextricable link between humanity and herself) asserts: “It is not just body. / It is not just mind. / It is not just spirit” (2).  Of course, the use of anaphorahere suggests poetry.  However, even the structure itself (each negational statement occurring on a line of its own) does no less.  In an equally poetic gesture, which occurs later in the memoir, Sage (reflecting on and emphasizing her father’s carceral sentence), says, “Four and a half years, / the quantifiable punishment for what he did. / Four and a half years, / the quantum for stealing my sister’s light. / Four and a half years, / for abusing my mother for thirteen years…” (79).  Again, the lines structurally read as poetry, thanks to the clearly intentionally (and highly effective) use of enjambment.  Though authors from different backgrounds and with different things to say, Soft as Bones, makes some similar moves as does Shane McCrae’s Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, another memoir that features abuse and trauma at the hands of a family member of the author, as well as their resilience, survival, and ultimate triumph.

Recounting past romantic relationships, whether those she deliberately sabotages or those she thankfully (if painfully) ends, Sage uses sobriquets to describe former lovers.  Both wonderfully creative (and, in the case of Charismatic Psychopath, delightfully irreverent), these descriptive names not only indicate the individual’s character and their impact on the author’s life but also evoke traditional indigenous naming practices, in which members of the community were named based on qualities, skills, or experiences.  Contrasting with the sobriquets, Sage’s father becomes “Frank” once the author discovers the truth about his relationship (if it can be called that) with her older sister, Orleane.

Though playful at times, Sage is anything but insincere.  And for every moment of irreverence, there are so many more sobering ones.  And, in the case, of healing, this is not just a story about the author’s own (however necessary and earned through years of effort and tears) but the healing of a community upon which exclusion and violence has been repeatedly and viciously visited (Citing the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Sage discusses the intergenerational effects of “the forced relocation of Indigenous people, residential schools, the child welfare system, and the Sixties Scoop”) (220).  As much as it is about the past, Soft as Bones is about the present.  It is about the improbability of the memoir’s existence, even that of the author herself.  As she notes (almost implying that it could have easily been her who had gone out and never returned),

So many Native girls I grew up with went missing, and many never made it back home…I think of the those times I had to run from cars, both times driven by white men.  One, screaming at me to get into the back, and the other, silent, older, sitting in a white truck, watching me, following me, waiting, but I ran down a one-way that he couldn’t turn onto and escaped. (220).

As much as this memoir is about the present, though, it is also about the future.  It is about the author’s ability to craft for herself a life informed and shaped, but not defined, by the past.  It is about a good life.  A life still in development and moving toward things initially only dreamt of but no less desired, even needed.  A life worth living.  And reading about.  And rereading.

Sitting among the leaves was a perfect sunflower:

A Conversation with Chyana Marie Sage about Soft as Bones

Tiffany Troy: You begin Soft as Bones with an epigraph by Ocean Vuong: “Some people say history moves in a spiral, not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory, our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed.” Spiralism in literature similarly views cultural production and memories not as a linear progression but through ebbs and flows. Why begin there?

Chyana Marie Sage: When I was writing my family’s story, what I was looking at was not just my story, or my sisters, or my mother or father, or my grandparents and aunts and uncles—but rather I was looking at how our lineage intersects, influences, and has informed each other. Really looking at the things we inherit, both the good and the bad and the complicated and everything in between. I knew I wanted the form of my book to mirror those intersections. In my culture, the spiral is very sacred and really captures how connected everything is. The form of the book I decided to weave together in the end, is a braided spiral. That’s what I call her. I remember when I was nearly finished the book, I read for the first time On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous. When I read that quote, I was like, “yes. This is someone who understands what I am trying to do here. I knew immediately I wanted it as my epigraph, so as to give a clue to my reader what I was doing both energetically and structurally. 

TT: In “Astamisphik,” you write: “I am trying to hear a history. I am trying to hear the rapids of the river that flow past someplace beyond the bush.” You liken yourself as a “detective,” “grave robber” and “gravedigger.” What was the process in ”laying the groundwork where all the soft bones will rest,” the bones literal as well as metaphorical?

CMS: Laying the groundwork really was like being a detective in the story of my life, and exploring each perspective, each history of my relatives, and then sitting with those truths and holding space for them. A psychoanalytic theorist and Holocaust survivor, Dori Laub, writes about the levels of witnessing within traumatic memory; “the level of being a witness to oneself within the experience; the level of being a witness to the testimony of others; and the level of being a witness to the process of witnessing.” I remember reading that in my early undergrad days and what he said really stuck with me. There’s many layers here when applying this lens to my own familial experiences. You have my own traumatic experiences as a child, but then you also have the traumatic experiences of my family members, and then you have me, holding space and bearing witness to their testimonies—and then the act of writing the book, that physical thing holding all of those testimonies together, really creates space for us to then bear witness to the process of witnessing. Exploring all of those spaces and histories, and allowing softness, forgiveness, and tenderness to be there, was my way of softening the earth beneath our feet so to speak. Those explorations really rested in the soft moments between us sharing our experiences, softening and unearthing our truths. And then of course, there is the very hard reality of all the Indigenous children who were buried and forgotten. It makes me really emotional to think about all our children who never made it home. 

TT: From your undergrad years, in listening to the words of Laub, you embark on this incredible journey as an Indigenous woman at Columbia, where you received your MFA in Nonfiction Writing. In the space between your undergrad years to near-completion of your memoir, when you encounter Ocean Vuong, what was the process like in making space for yourself and writing the memoir?

CMS: It really was a complete and total absorption. I decided to do an MFA because I wanted two years of uninterrupted time where I was living and breathing writing my book. It’s rare to have that kind of time to be able to focus solely on your craft, and I wanted to gift that to myself. It was a combination of writing, interviewing family members, going through family archives, photographs, attending ceremony, and then also studying trauma theory. I would read up on Marienne Hirsch, and attachment theory. It was all building this constellation of understanding my own familial history and how that situated in the larger construct of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. It was the ultimate reckoning of understanding and releasing in order to free myself from suffering. Education was very much part of my understanding of the personal. 

TT: Thinking about the six-sectioned structure of the memoir (Astamispihk: Before That Time, Before Then and Now; Part I: Ayahciniwew: She Covers Somebody with Earth; Part II: Pinikanew: Her Bone Aches Right Through the Marrow; Part III: Pâstâsow: She Breaks Bones for Marrow; Part IV: Nîswahpitam: She Ties Bones Together as Two; Âsteyakamin, After a Big Wind and the Water Is Calm), Kinsale Drake writes that your stories “swirl across time like sweetgrass braids, like tendrils of smoke.” How did you land upon the overall structure of the memoir and how did you organize within each section of the memoir? 

(My favorite is Part II, which I was lucky enough to be privy to, where you write about the drum-making ceremony, interlaced with the stories told by your elders, familial and matrilineal history and trauma, across narrative, music, and dialogue.)

CMS: The book has four parts, and Astamispihk is actually the Indigenous version of a prologue, and Âsteyakamin is the epilogue. To me, both of the words embody those meanings in Cree. This book is what I call my braided spiral. Form was very crucial to me in telling this story, because I wanted the form to epitomize the intricate network of connection and inheritance that exists within a family structure. I want to show how I am connected to my grandparents and their experiences, and how they are connected to our future children, and how we are all connected to even our ancient ancestors. Lineage is the most interconnected constellation of experience that exists all at the same time, and in my culture, both the spiral and the number four have significant meaning. The spiral is a representation of our worldviews that we are all connected to each other, but also to the land, the animals, the skies, the seasons. Then the number four is a sacred number because it represents the four houses of the medicine wheel, the four seasons, the four directions. When we get to the completion of the seasons, and winter thaws to meet spring, we enter into a new cycle. I view this book as that process for me, releasing and undergoing immense change, to come out the other side as a new woman, ready to enter into this next cycle of life. I wanted to weave together all our histories and truth in this intricate web, so show the ways we are connected, and to also inform why it was so detrimental to sever the connections in our lineages, creating those cycles of harm, unable to pass down our histories and truths orally as we had been doing since time immemorial. 

TT: How does Cree mythology expand the worldscape of the memoir? For budding writers who are writing from their people’s mythologies or fables, what are some creative writing strategies or tips that you can give them to be true to their voice while also being respectful of and maintaining a critical eye towards the mythological archetypes?

CMS: In my culture, stories are so interwoven into how we pass along knowledge and lessons. They have been passed down through the generations, and each storyteller adds in some of their own perspective, so they’re all in conversation with one another. But there are some stories that are sacred, and so for my memoir I wrote my own original Witigo and Wesakechahk stories, and that was also my way of honouring those cultural protocols. It was important for me to include those stories though, because they are inherently part of me, my family, and our larger communities. They’re also so fun and beautiful and I wanted to capture some of the beauty of our culture, as well. As I was writing, I just kept being pulled back to certain stories and figures, and how those directly related to different people or parts of my life. I think for others, just follow the impulses and urges, and also remember that you are an author, and so you can take these mythologies and play with them and adapt them to make them your own. 

TT: What are you working on today?

CMS: I am currently working on a magical realism novel that I am actually adapting from a TV pilot that I wrote during my time at Columbia, as well as finishing this short film idea I’ve had. The mission is to get that made and submitted, and then to eventually adapt my memoir into a feature film. I also started my own storytelling foundation, where I hope to host the first ever all-Indigenous literary/storytelling festival in 2026. It’s called the Soft As Bones Storytelling Foundation. 

TT: Do you have any closing thoughts for your readers of the world?

CMS: To be brave when facing your truths—the beautiful, the complicated, the dark, the haunting—there is beauty on the other side of walking right through those doors.

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.  His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests.  A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which his debut chapbook, This is My Body, was published in 2025.  Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree, Métis, and Salish memoirist, journalist, essayist, poet, content creator, public speaker, creative writing teacher, mentor, and screenwriter from Edmonton, Alberta. Her essay “Soar” won first place in the Edna Staebler Essay Contest, and then won the Silver Medal in the National Magazine Awards. She lives in NYC, and was the first Indigenous graduate from Columbia University’s creative nonfiction MFA, where she then worked as an adjunct Creative Writing professor. She publishes regularly with HuffPost, and her debut memoir, Soft as Bones was published with House of Anansi in May 2025 (https://chyanamariesage.com) 

Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]) and the chapbook When Ilium Burns (Bottlecap Press). She translated Catalina Vergara’s diamond & rust (Toad Press International Chapbook Series). She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, Associate Editor of Tupelo Press, Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review, and Co-Editor of Matter.

17 December 2025