“I texted him back with a simple ‘No.’ I made an emphasis to punctuate my text. “Humility is just a humiliation you loved so much it transformed.” Some of my favourite quotes from Jonny were:

Jonny has so much to say and you just want to share his words. Jonny Appleseed is one of those seemingly infinitely quotable books I found myself frequently underlining. In a character- and relationship-driven novel devoid of a lot of what is conventionally considered “plot” (this is not a bad thing in my mind), the voice of Jonny is what holds the story and the reader along for the ride. Jonny, the Two-Spirit main character, carries the book with his raw, hilarious, and insightful voice. Jonny Appleseed is the most poignant reminder I’ve had in a while about how powerful and effecting a first person narrative can be. Not done well (which seems like the case more of the time, perhaps attesting to the difficulty of getting the voice right), I find them tough to get through or even unbearable. Done well, I am often incredibly moved by first-person narratives and remark on the artistry of representing the world from a particular person’s perspective. This is especially true in my experience when an author also chooses to tell the story in present tense. It’s hard to successfully represent an authentic-seeming individual’s voice and have a narrative that makes sense in terms of the information that limited perspective has for the plot. I think novel-length stories told from an “I” are very hard to pull off. I haven’t been reading a lot of them, and some of the ones I have read in the last year have grated on my nerves a little.

When I finished reading this debut novel by Joshua Whitehead (an Oji-Cree/nehiyaw, Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer member of the Peguis First Nation ), I remember thinking about first person narratives. What a damn fine book Jonny Appleseed is.

Jonny appleseed joshua whitehead