Jonny Appleseed

Publisher's Description (Arsenal Pulp Press):
Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez"--and his former life--to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of First Nations life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.

Author Biography (Arsenal Pulp Press):
Joshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree/nehiyaw, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of the novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018), longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks, 2017) and the winner of the Governor General's History Award for the Indigenous Arts and Stories Challenge in 2016. He is also the editor of Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020). Currently he is working on a PhD in Indigenous Literatures and Cultures in the University of Calgary's English department (Treaty 7).

Resource type: Book (fiction)

Age recommendation: Grade 12, post secondary

Keywords: Queer Theory, Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, sexuality, identity, love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, history, home

Year of publication: 2018

Publisher information: Arsenal Pulp Press