A review by time4reading
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

“One fact I’d learn is that leaving always hurts—home isn’t a space, it’s a feeling. You have to feel home and to feel it, you have to sense it: smell it, taste it, hear it. And it isn’t always comfortable—at least, not an NDN home. In fact, quite often, it’s uncomfortable. But it’s home because the bannock is browning in the oven and your kokum is still making tea and eating Arrowroot biscuits. It’s home because it has to be—routine satiates these pangs. And, given time, it becomes mobile—you can take these rituals with you, uproot your home as if it was a flower. Yeah, maybe home is like a flower, a sunflower whose big bright head follows the sun; or maybe that’s too fancy a metaphor for NDNs? Maybe we’re more like dandelions, a weed that’s a pest in the yard but pretty to look at. Yeah, an NDN home is like a dandelion: pretty but disposable, and imbued with a million little seeds that dissolve into wishes for little white hands that pluck. My home is full of hope and ghosts.”

There’s something wonderful about a pure first person narration. Jonny Appleseed is narrated entirely by Jonny, a queer Two-Spirit Oji-Cree who makes his living as an online sex worker, and who must find a way to travel from Winnipeg home to Peguis First Nation for a funeral. His narration moves fluidly back and forth between his present day and recollections of the past, of his family, of his friends, of his growing up, expressing his identity, and leaving. There is love, sex, friendship. There is also abuse, generational trauma, and substance abuse. Throughout it all, Jonny is captivating and insightful and funny, an engaging voice I couldn’t get enough of (there’s a story about getting a frog for his kokum that I just loved).

Author Joshua Whitehead (Oji-Cree/nehiyaw Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1)) has rightly received a lot of recognition for this book. It was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, a Giller Prize long lister, and is now a Canada Reads selection. It had been on my TBR for a while and I’m so glad I’ve read it.
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