[4] It was selected for and won the 2022 edition of Canada Reads, nominated by Christian Allaire, Ojibwe author and Vogue Fashion Editor.

[5] Although the novel is predominantly fictional, some of its stories were based on real experiences of Good's mother and grandmother, who were survivors of the residential school system.

[1] Growing up, her mother talked about the traumatic histories and experiences of attending St. Barnabas Residential School in Onion Lake, Saskatchewan.

[7] The novel's development took more than a decade, beginning in 2011 when Good was a fine arts graduate student at the University of British Columbia.

[8] As part of the writing process, Good relied on psychological assessments of children who experienced physical and sexual abuse in order to accurately depict these events' long-term impacts on a person's life.