Fiction ISBN 978-1-55152-725-3 $17.95 Canada | $15.95 USA Arsenal Pulp Press
“You’re gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine” Whitehead is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer and NDN glitter princess, Joshua Joshua repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by Joshua Whitehead. Off the rez and trying to find ways to live, love, and survive in the big city, Jonny has one week before he must return to his home—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 heartbreaking recollections 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 HIGHLIGHTS Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams. “Joshua Whitehead redefines what queer Indigenous writing can be in his powerful debut novel. Jonny Appleseed transcends genres of writing to blend the sacred and the sexual into 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 shown before. This book is an honour song to every queer NDN body who has ever lived and it will transform the universe with its beauty and magic.” FROM THE BACKLIST —Gwen Benaway, author of Passage “If we’re lucky, we’ll find one or two books in a lifetime that change the language of story, that manage to illuminate new curves in the flat vessels of old letters and words.
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