7th Cousins: An Automythography is a hybrid performance book published by Book *hug.
In the summer of 2015, Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker walked 700 kilometres, from Pennsylvania to Ontario, tracing the migration route of their Mennonite ancestors. Someone asked if they were walking to learn how to work together. This was certainly part of it.
Along the way they were hosted by a series of people with whom they had next to nothing in common. They were welcomed into strangers’ homes and treated as family. On their journey through the American Bible Belt they encountered folks with religious and political beliefs very different from their own and learned to question what conversations to enter and how far to take them. They accomplished this and so much more while navigating their own relationship and the challenges of being with another person, on foot, for 32 days.
The book documents the walk itself, and the performance Erin and Christine generated afterwards. Included throughout are photo essays from the journey and commentaries from collaborators Christopher Stanton, Andrea Nann, Kaitlin Hickey, and Erum Khan. Erin and Christine are available to give interactive readings, and the book itself is available with Book*hug, or at your local book sellers.
“7th Cousins is a sharp, very personal and insightful work of documentary theatre that embodies a kind of honest female friendship that is so important to experience in our current moment, as well as a journey into the U.S. that gives trenchant insights far beyond what I was expecting.”
—Jacob Wren, PME-ART
"There Is Some Witting and Unwitting Mythologizing Involved" Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker Get Experimental in Their New Travel Memoir —Open Book
Most Anticipated: 2019 Fall Nonfiction Preview —49th Shelf
“No simple re-telling, the book aims to conjure new meanings—the magic—from the space of the live performance shows that followed the walk. It’s a fascinating attempt at embedding improvisation and mixed media storytelling techniques in book format. In the process, it challenges the traditional idea of what published nonfiction can look like.” —Geoff Martin, The Common
Book cover by Ingrid Paulson, website mainpage thumbnail image (featuring Erin Brubabcher and Christine Brubaker) by Samuel Choisy