Joshua Whitehead

I can see why Joshua Whitehead has had the success he's had as a published poet - he has a beautiful way with words. This story, of a Canadian First Nation two-spirited boy and his life journey so far - up to the point of the death of his step-father, is in parts humorous, touching, beautiful and explicit.

Johnny Appleseed discovers his queerness early on, and finds that his grandma (his Kokum) and his mother are already well aware of his two-spiritedness and deal with it matter of factly. show more His stepfather and many of the others on the "rez" are not so accepting. Johnny develops a relationship with another boy, Tias, who he remains close to throughout the book. Tias has his own story that also comes out in the book as he reveals himself to Johnny. Eventually Johnny moves away from the reservation into the city and begins working as a cybersex worker. He returns home as the book ends to take part in his step-father's funeral. The story is told as several smaller stories, not strung together chronologically but more or less thematically.

The book is frank in its depiction of sex, which may be a turn-off for some, but the way Joshua writes, even about the sex, is fantastic. It's as if your close friend is sitting you down and honestly telling you all about themself and how they got where they are today. You really do feel that you've come to know Johnny that well by the time the book ends.

This book was suggested to me through the Libby app as a Librarian's Choice for Pride Month.

I listened to the audiobook, read by the author. He did a great job narrating too. show less

This is one of those rare books that feels like it lives and breathes on its own. It’s gorgeous, gritty, raw, and viscous. It’s centered on two-spirit people and Indigenous women in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba (Treaty 1 territory), on the traditional lands of the Anishinabe, Ininew, Oji-Cree, Dene, and Dakota peoples. It paints a world that is at once deeply personal and profoundly political. I’ve only visited that region briefly as a child, with another trip in the works for this show more summer, and it feels more alive through Whitehead’s words. The prose reads like poetry, visceral and emotional. Small moments are studied and expanded so you’re not just reading it, you’re in it: in the body, the room, the soul, the memory. It reminded me of how I felt reading Making Love with the Land, and I’m grateful to have finally read this one, too. The metaphors never felt heavy-handed or pretentious, the writing never strays into indulgence, it’s just art. I want to reread it, to sit longer with the beauty and pain. This book won’t resonate with everyone, but I wish we lived in a world where it could. If we did, maybe we wouldn’t need it so much. show less

This project was an auto-support on Kickstarter for me, coming from a small press I liked (before they exploded), as its second sf anthology of two-spirit Indigenous stories, and edited by Joshua Whitehead, author of Jonny Appleseed (which I continue to be IN LOVE WITH).

Of course, between me supporting this and reading it, the press went down in flames, publication rights thankfully moved to Arsenal Pulp Press, but all of its reviews and ratings will stay with this edition, surely? Which show more probably puts this book in a weird limbo?

Which is a shame because I really enjoyed this anthology. None of the stories underwhelmed, a handful of the authors I remembered from the first anthology, and most of them I would love to see more writing from. I really liked all of these, but I think my favorite stories were "Nameless" by Nazbah Tom (an elder teaches her gift of Traveling to call home their people), "Seed Children" by Mari Kurisato (a wise-cracking "synthetic human" fights to secure a future for synthetic children as Withering Earth fails), and "Story for a Bottle" by Darcie Little Badger (a young woman is kidnapped by an out-of-touch rescue boat run by AI that thinks it is saving her).

I hope people continue to find this little gem despite the trash fire it was born into. show less

I finished [Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction] edited by Joshua Whitehead. Loved it. Only 9 stories yet all quite memorable. Protagonists are a mix of lesbian, gay, trans, nonbinary, and unknown queer-status folks, mostly young, and from Ojibwe, Cree, Anishinaabe, Mi'kmaq, Navajo nations, though some stories did not indicate any specific tribal heritage. One protagonist was white yet focused entirely on her Cree love interest. These dystopian show more stories include colonies out in space, either spaceships heading out from Earth or long since settled, alternate/virtual reality via cyberspace, colonizing a world via a portal, either increasingly totalitarian government and scarce resources for survival or turtled-up communities keeping the chaos outside at bay, cyborgs, time travel through the spirit realm, but also thriving after the collapse of civilization, and keeping oral history and the relics of writing alive. Definitely worth checking out if you want to experience an indigenous spin on common science fiction tropes. show less