plett casey lindsay wong lindsay wong WOO-WOO THE Little Fish is the stunning debut novel “You’re gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine” Whitehead Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother by the author of the Lambda Literary is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer and NDN glitter princess, Award-winning story collection Joshua who was deeply afraid of the “woo-woo”—Chinese ghosts who visit in times of personal repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by Joshua Whitehead. turmoil. When Lindsay was six, she and her mother avoided the dead people haunting A Safe Girl to Love. their house by hiding out in a mall food court, and on a camping trip, Lindsay’s mother Off the rez and trying to find ways to live, love, and survive in the big city, Jonny has one tried to rid her daughter of demons by lighting her foot on fire. It’s the dead of winter in Winnipeg and Wendy week before he must return to his home—and his former life—to attend the funeral of his Reimer, a thirty-year-old trans woman, feels like her stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, The eccentricities take a dark turn when her aunt holds the city hostage for eight hours life is frozen in place. When her Oma passes away kinship, ambition, and heartbreaking recollections of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Wendy receives an unexpected phone call from a Jonny’s life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages—and as he goes through the threatening to jump off a bridge. And when Lindsay starts to experience symptoms of motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life. distant family friend with a startling secret: Wendy’s Little Fish the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family. JONNY APPLESEED Opa (grandfather)—a devout Mennonite farmer— Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams. At once a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience and a might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, but as Wendy’s life grows harrowing and honest depiction of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching increasingly volatile, she finds herself aching for the and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself. lost pieces of her Opa’s truth. Can Wendy unravel the mystery of her grandfather’s world and reckon with “Joshua Whitehead redefines what queer Indigenous writing can be in his powerful debut the culture that both shaped and rejected her? She’s novel. Jonny Appleseed transcends genres of writing to blend the sacred and the sexual into determined to try. a vital expression of Indigenous desire and love. Reading it is a coming home to bodies, stories, and experiences of queer Indigenous life that has never been so richly and honestly Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, shown before. This book is an honour song to every queer NDN body who has ever lived “The Woo-Woo will break your heart, then bind it back together. desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the and it will transform the universe with its beauty and magic.” With luxurious prose, dark humour, and a sharp yet tender gaze, winter of discontent in the life of one transgender —Gwen Benaway, author of Passage Lindsay Wong gives us an unforgettable memoir.” woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find one or two books in a lifetime that change the language of story, —Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of Motorcycles I’ve Loved that manage to illuminate new curves in the flat vessels of old letters and words. This is one and Good Morning, Midnight “I have never felt as seen, understood, or spoken to of those books. Jonny Appleseed gifts us with clarity in the shape of sharp, and medicine in H T S I as I did when I read Little Fish. Never before in my I L L A the guise of soft—and a sexy, powerful, broken, beautiful hero who has enough capacity in A R life. Casey remains one of THE authors to read if you Y N I the dent of a clavicle to hold all the tears of his family.” W “Lindsay Wong’s The Woo-Woo is a brave, funny, and heartbreaking new want to understandF the interior lives of trans women E S —Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves memoir that takes on that mysticism so regularly sold to us as part of the Asian and T in this century.” —Meredith Russo, O N N O I author of If I Was Your Girl W T Asian American experience and presents a side we don’t often see: that of a young C R I “Jonny Appleseed is the most beautiful quill and bead work that I’ve felt since discovering I T F E N R O woman struggling to survive her family’s adherence to a belief system S N Chrystos and Gregory Scofield. I’m in awe, Jonny. I’m grateful, Joshua. I’m astounded at ' T R “There is a dark place most novels don’t touch. R U F O she knows will doom her and them both.” S T P R I Z E If you’ve ever been there, maybe you know how everything you’ve gathered here for us to honour and blush about and witness. You are my exhilarating it can be to read a book like this, a new hero. Don’t you ever stop writing and sharing. Mahsi cho for your beauty.” —Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel book that captures the darkness so honestly, so —Richard Van Camp, author of The Lesser Blessed accurately, that you can finally begin to let it go. “Lindsay Wong is caustic, observant, relentless, and, Fearless and messy and oozing with love, Little Fish “Jonny Appleseed weaponizes story to bring the rez (and urban rez) to life, shrouding its is a devastating book that I don’t ever want to be in my opinion, the future of Asian Canadian writing.” characters in luminous layers so they’re neither good nor bad but immersed in worlds and without.” —Zoey Leigh Peterson, words. Unflinching and intimate, Joshua Whitehead takes his readers on a journey to the ―Kevin Chong, author of The Plague author of Next Year, For Sure heart of an NDN glitter princess with generous, swooning prose. Unforgettable.” —Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster Fiction | ISBN 978-1-55152-720-8 $17.95 USA | $19.95 Canada Memoir | Social Science ARSENAL PULP PRESS | arsenalpulp.com (Family & Relationships) ISBN 978-1-55152-736-9 Fiction $19.95 Canada | $17.95 USA ISBN 978-1-55152-725-3 ARSENAL PULP PRESS $17.95 Canada | $15.95 USA arsenal pulp press ARSENALPULP.COM arsenalpulp.com page 24, isbn 978-1-55152-736-9 24, isbn page 978-1-55152-720-8 16, isbn page 978-1-55152-725-3 16, isbn page NEW RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS FROM HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BACKLIST CANADA READS FINALIST AMAZON CANADA FIRST LAMBDA LITERARY NOVEL AWARD WINNER AWARD WINNER page 17, isbn 978-1-55152-755-0 17, isbn page 978-1-55152-801-4 18, isbn page page 21, isbn 978-1-55152-775-8 21, isbn page ROGERS WRITERS’ TRUST ALA STONEWALL FICTION PRIZE FINALIST HONOR BOOK page 25, isbn 978-1-55152-781-9 25, isbn page 978-1-55152-765-9 19, isbn page 978-1-55152-773-4 22, isbn page Catherine Hernandez A GLOBE & MAIL AND NATIONAL POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS Scarborough is a low-income, culturally diverse neighbourhood east of Toronto; like many inner-city communities, it su ers under the weight of poverty, drugs, crime, and urban blight. Scarborough the novel employs a multitude of voices to tell the story of a tight-knit neighbourhood under re, o ering a raw yet empathetic glimpse into a troubled community that locates its dignity in unexpected places: a neighbourhood that refuses to be undone. “Scarborough marks the arrival of a erce new voice in Canadian ction. Hernandez has rendered one of the most vibrant portraits of contemporary suburbia I’ve yet encountered.” —Jordan Tannahill, Governor General’s Award-winning playwright “It’s said that sometimes an author needs to write ction in order to tell the most searing Scarborough truth, and Scarborough is perfect proof of that axiom. This is a beautifully rendered, intimately populated landscape that honours and cherishes characters we usually only see relegated to background scenery and pat, two-dimensional representations. It feels at once foreign and familiar, soothing and challenging—the kind of storytelling that touches our tenderest places; the best kind of storytelling I know.” —S. Bear Bergman, author of Butch Is a Noun and The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You “Scarborough showcases a necessary shift from the singular voice novel to create space for many voices to be heard—especially ones that are often forgotten. In her dexterous debut, Catherine Hernandez powerfully centres the margins by interlacing narratives that spotlight the beauty that thrives beyond the big city.” —Vivek Shraya, author of even this page is white and She of the Mountains st li a n i f 2017 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS www.toronto.ca/bookawards www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/tba In partnership with the Fiction ISBN 978-1-55152-677-5 $17.95 USA & Canada ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com page 19, isbn 978-1-55152-733-8 19, isbn page page 17, isbn 978-1-55152-677-5 17, isbn page 978-1-55152-783-3 24, isbn page Arsenal Pulp Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Council for its publishing program, and the (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Government of Canada, and the Government səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of British Columbia (through the Book of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located.