Horses in the Sand – by Lorrie Potvin

Reviewed by Cheryl Sutherland | Jun 01, 2022

Lorrie Potvin’s Horses in the Sand is a compelling and powerful memoir exploring the concepts of identity and finding home. Set primarily in eastern Ontario and the Ottawa Valley, Potvin’s writing chronicles her experiences of childhood familial dysfunction and her path to self-reclamation.

Caught in a narrative of abuse and violence from childhood, Lorrie spends decades searching for the pieces of her identity that were stolen. How do you make sense of who you are when you have been told that you were “bad and ugly” from a very young age? How do you reconcile the way you feel with the ways in which the outside world tells you that you should feel?

How do you move beyond not simply accepting who you think you may be and make your way to celebrating the uniqueness of who you truly are?

Resilient from childhood, Lorrie’s grit, determination, insight and steadfast questioning of the stereotypes and assumptions that embodied her younger years and threatened to contain her, laid the groundwork from which she would launch herself into adulthood. Horses in the Sand captures both the innocence of childhood and the fractures that occur when one’s early years are punctuated by violence and maternal disengagement.

Growing up in the 1970s-80s with a non-conforming sexual identity, Potvin challenges gender roles and becomes certified in a traditionally male dominated field. She follows her heart, when many others would have chosen to take an easier route. Her identity as a tradeswoman and ultimately a teacher in the field, is not only impressive, but profoundly heartwarming. You cannot help as a reader to wish you had been able to cheer her on in person while she fought against the confines of her gender imposed societal limitations.

The discovery of her previously unknown Metis identity and the ways in which she includes the reader in her journey to self understanding and celebration is such an honour to witness. Taking the time to fully explore and understand how her indigenous identity plays such a tremendous role in helping her find her way home. Horses in the Sand provides the reader not only with a unique lens in which to understand the concept of self-reclamation; it also allows you to recognize the varied and complex ways in which our identities and beliefs about what those identities mean affects the very way in which we understand and navigate our lives.

Growing up with a queer identity in 70s and 80s Eastern Ontario was to experience oppression, alienation, discrimination and shame. How any of us made it through continues to amaze me. I cannot help but wonder what our lives would have been like if who we are was something to be celebrated instead of hidden behind those rickety closet doors. At the time when Lorrie and I were growing up very few people ever spoke the words lesbian or gay, let alone anything else. And when they did those words were flung around as insults to demean and make small those who did not fit the mold that society had fabricated.

Horses in the Sand is a timely celebration of both sexual and indigenous identity(ies). It is a brutally honest and courageous account of one woman’s struggle, but it reaches far beyond the individual experience.

Lorrie Potion’s memoir is a story that can give people hope, especially to those struggling with their sexual and indigenous identities.