Jonny Appleseed

It turns out that Johnny Appleseed is some American folk legend who became famous by planting apple trees in West Virginia. I didn't understand why we'd sung about him in camp – I wanted to know about Louis Riel, Chief Peguis, and Buffy St. Marie, but instead we were honouring some white man throwing apple seeds in frontier America. Apparently he was this moral martyr figure who remained a virgin in exchange for the promise of two wives in heaven. Oh, and he loved animals, and I heard he saved some horse by hand-feeding him blades of grass, Walt Whitman-style. I would bet my left nut that he was a slave owner too and planted his seeds on Treaty territory. All I know is this: apples are crazy expensive on the rez and they had now become bad things in my head.

Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer author Joshua Whitehead has created a really remarkable character with Jonny Appleseed: knowing himself to be different from the other boys while growing up on the rez, Jonny eventually declares his own Two-Spirit nature – which comes as no surprise to his rock-solid mother and doting kookum – and after high school, moves to Winnipeg where he hopes to find love. As the story starts, Jonny's stepdad has died, his Mom wants Jonny to return home for the funeral, and the only way he can hustle up the money is to turn a few more tricks as a (mostly cyber-based) “NDN glitter princess”. Over the time it takes for Jonny to make enough money, the narrative fluidly traces Jonny's history and present, showing pain and love and friendship and family; Jonny has had it hard without becoming hard. 

Throughout his life, Jonny has had one good friend, Thias – a “friend with benefits” who claims he isn't gay – and throughout the story, this relationship is Jonny's rock:

Instead of saying we liked or loved each other, we just lay there on our backs, our brown skin shiny in the rosy light that poured in from the evening sun. We surveyed each others' body: him seeing the scar above my clavicle from when I fell down the stairs as a kid, and me seeing the patch of hair missing from his scalp. I knew then that I loved him.

Funny how an NDN “love you” sounds more like, “I'm in pain with you.”

The book is full of these quotable lines, but also full of pop culture references, quirky observations, and social commentary (it's not overtly political, but it's apparent that history and politics have shaped reality for Jonny and those he knows). It also has plenty of graphic sex, violence, and addictions. And still: Jonny isn't broken or defeated; he likes to walk around Walmart and imagine how he'd furnish his own house some day. The most vital part of Jonny Appleseed is best described by Joshua Whitehead himself in the afterword:

I write this book with the goal of showing you that Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous folx are not a “was”, that we are not the ethnographic and romanticized notations of “revered mystic” or “shamanic”, instead we are an is and a coming. In nehiyawewin, there are no masculine or feminine attributes, instead we have animations in which we hold all our relations. We are accountable to those kin, be they inanimate or non-human, or be they unabashedly queer, femme, bottom, pained, broken. We put our most vulnerable in the centre and for once I do just that: 2S folx and Indigenous women are centred here. I hold our relations accountable for us for once. Jonny has taught me a lot of things but there are two that I want to share with you: one, a good story is always a healing ceremony, we recuperate, re-member, and rejuvenate those we storytell into the world; and two, if we animate our pain, it becomes something we can make love to.

Like many others, I've heard the term “Two-Spirit” and imagined I had an idea of what that meant, so it was very interesting to me to read a story that focussed on what the lived experience of a Two-Spirit person is actually like. This book is both an eye-opener and a thought-provoking read; I'll round up to four stars.

The 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist: 

Paige Cooper: Zolitude

Patrick DeWitt: French Exit

Eric Dupont: Songs for the Cold of Heart

Esi Edugyan: Washington Black

Rawi Hage: Beirut Hellfire Society

Sheila Heti: Motherhood

Emma Hooper: Our Homesick Songs

Thea Lim: An Ocean of Minutes

Lisa Moore: Something for Everyone

Tanya Tagaq: Split Tooth

Kim Thúy: Vi

Joshua Whitehead: Jonny Appleseed

*Won by Washington Black (but I would have given it to Songs for the Cold of Heart)

The 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language Fiction Finalists:

Zolitude by Paige Coope
Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage
The Red Word by Sarah Henstra
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

* Won by The Red Word. I think the GGs picked a really strong list this year and I am pleased that Henstra won.