Jonny Appleseed
I was interested to read a new novel because it is described as the story of a two-spirit /Indigiqueer
character Jonny Appleseed (not to be confused with the American Johnny Appleseed who planted apple trees in West Virginia). Nor, the author points out are two-spirit people to be confused with transgender people.
Poet and prose author Joshua Whitehead and his character are Ojibwe-Cree. He says his story and Jonny's story are braided together. The book rewards patient reading with its unconventional fever-dream structure and non-linear treatment of time. The publishers promote it as a novel for adults, though Joshua Whitehead wrote it for a young adult readership. He was inspired by novels of the reality of youth culture such as Go Ask Alice and The Outsiders. In his studies for his Bachelor's and Master's degrees and currently toward a PhD he has been frustrated by the invisibility of Indigenous/queer people in the canonic reading lists.
He writes for two-spirit or queer Indigenous youth to showcase them “in powerful and sexual and meaningful and healthy ways”. He says that you need to see yourself in order to know yourself and that now there are so many harmful representations of Indigeneity, specifically queer Indigeneity, made by non-Indigenous people, or sometimes even Indigenous people. He is inspired by a number of contemporary Indigenous writers. In 2017, he first published a book of poetry full-metal indigiqueer. He says writing has saved him.
Jonny Appleseed, a twenty-something year old who is living in Winnipeg has a week to earn enough money as a webcam boy to travel back to the reservation on Peguis First Nation Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba to support his mother at the funeral of his stepfather. Self-described NDN glitter princess Jonny Appleseed has had to leave the reservation because of homophobic threats by others who are ignorant of so much of their traditional culture, including respect for two-spirit people, thanks to the destructive residential schools. The story is both Jonny Appleseed's physical and metaphorical journey as he reflects on his experiences and memories of his life on the rez and in the big city, as he tries to piece together his identity and where he belongs. At the age of 8, he was secretly watching Queer As Folk with the sound down in his kokum's (grandmother's) attic after she has gone to bed. She accepts him completely when he comes out to her.
Jonny Appleseed is not portrayed as a traditional “mystical”, “spiritual”, figure from anthropology but as a contemporary person who is working to survive the effects of colonisation and violence, poverty, addiction and homophobia.
Jonny Appleseed is a love story, portraying familial love, tenderness, nurturing love, platonic love, very sexual love. Jonny is much loved by his best friend/lover Tias who claims he is not gay, his kokum and his mother. Tias' fierce girlfriend Jordan becomes his good friend. The characters, especially the women, are complex people dealing with traumas but positive people who can laugh and joke too, so the book is often funny.
Jonny Appleseed is a finalist for the Canadian Governor-General's Award to be announced, I think, later this month.
