Summary of Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett's A House in the Sky

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I was nine years old and living in a town called Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada. I trusted what I knew about the world, which was a tribe of pygmy archers in the Congo and the green geometry of Kyoto’s tea gardens.

#2 My mother had known Russell for years before he became her boyfriend. He had been raised on the Sunchild First Nation Reserve, and had four brothers who ended up somewhere between the reserve and Red Deer.

#3 My mother had a relationship with Russell, which was a sort of screw-you directed at all the white kids she went to high school with in Red Deer. Russell gave her an odd new cachet. He was young and mildly handsome, and came from a place that was considered wild and unusual.

#4 I had a brother, Mark, who was 13 when we moved to Sylvan Lake. We would go to the dumpster outside our apartment building to find things to sell. We would visit five or six garbage bins regularly, and would bring home lots of money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822530881

IRB Media

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Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was nine years old and living in a town called Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada. I trusted what I knew about the world, which was a tribe of pygmy archers in the Congo and the green geometry of Kyoto’s tea gardens.

#2

My mother had known Russell for years before he became her boyfriend. He had been raised on the Sunchild First Nation Reserve, and had four brothers who ended up somewhere between the reserve and Red Deer.

#3

My mother had a relationship with Russell, which was a sort of screw-you directed at all the white kids she went to high school with in Red Deer. Russell gave her an odd new cachet. He was young and mildly handsome, and came from a place that was considered wild and unusual.

#4

I had a brother, Mark, who was 13 when we moved to Sylvan Lake. We would go to the dumpster outside our apartment building to find things to sell. We would visit five or six garbage bins regularly, and would bring home lots of money.

#5

I would spend my bottle money on a thrift store by the lake, where I would buy old clothes, porcelain knickknacks, and the literary detritus of summertime tourists. I would spend my school lunch hours going through the magazines page by page, feeling awe for what they suggested about the world.

#6

I had a feeling about what would happen next: I would climb the wall, get dizzy, fall down, and break some bones. The police would come - strangers all of them - and they would bring their dogs.

#7

I would meet Carrie Crowfoot at the maze, and we would become friends only six months later. Her mother would move the family back to the Sunchild reserve sometime that spring. I would start to get more interested in the kids at school and in school itself.

#8

My mother had been thinking about the party for weeks. She’d been to the Christmas Bureau in Red Deer, signed a paper attesting to the fact that she had three kids and made seven dollars per hour, and picked up gifts for free. She looked amazing in her black dress.

#9

I would hear my mother and Russell fighting, and I would hear Russell screaming about how he was going to kill her. I would hear my mother running to the women’s shelter in Red Deer.

#10

I was always escaping my family’s fights. I was launched. My mind swept from beneath the bed-sheets and up the stairs, far away, to urchins, manatees, and chimps. I saw Saudi girls on a swing set and cells bubbling under a microscope.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

I was 19 when I moved to Calgary in 2000. I thought that in the city, Jamie could record a CD and get some sort of deal. But between the two of us, we barely made rent.

#2

I went to a Japanese restaurant that was run by the same restaurateur as the nightclub called the Drink. The manager, Rob Swiderski, offered me a job as a cocktail waitress. I felt conflicted. I wanted to serve meals, not drinks.

#3

I worked as a cocktail waitress at the Drink, a club in Calgary, and was thrilled to make 50 dollars in four hours. I was overjoyed.

#4

I became friends with the other waitresses at the Drink, and learned how to deftly dodge drunken propositions. I enjoyed