In their astonishing memoirs, published only weeks apart, Kazim Ali and Robert Boschman explore how their personal and family stories overlap with histories of violence, colonialism, indigenous dispossession, and energy development in Western Canada. In Fall 2021, Boschman and Ali sat down with Energy Humanities editors to discuss the resonances between their narratives and the themes that unite them. The conversation that followed was an intimate and affecting dialogue between two men wrestling with the past.