Jonny Sour Appleseed

Hello again, friends! Welcome back for another Pride Month edition of my blog. This month is also Indigenous History Month and in light of what’s been happening across Canada, I wanted to highlight an Indigenous author as well. In case you are uninformed, the bodies of hundreds of children have been found buried under old residential schools. And it all sadly started in my hometown of Kamloops, BC. This revelation has brought up a lot of feelings and important conversations about Canada’s dark history of genocide against the Indigenous peoples over the past few weeks. So, I felt it was important to have an Indigenous voice this month. And Joshua Whitehead is not only Indigenous but also part of the LGBTQ2+ community, so his debut novel Jonny Appleseed was an obvious choice. And to accompany this review I’ll be making one of my favourite cocktails, a Sour Apple Martini. Enjoy!

Sour Apple Martini Recipe

1–2oz Vodka

1–2oz Green Apple Liquor (Sourpuss)

0.5oz Lime Juice

1–2 drops Lavender Syrup*

1 splash Water*

*Lavender syrup and water are optional ingredients.

In a cocktail shaker with ice, combine all ingredients and shake for approximately 10 seconds. Then strain into a martini glass and enjoy.

This week I am using two special ingredients. The first is lavender syrup (which you may remember I’ve used before in an earlier post) and the second is just water. I decided on water because Jonny talks about its importance to himself and his culture in detail. However, water didn’t feel overly special to the drink itself and doesn’t really change it at all. So, I also added lavender syrup because it’s a small part of Jonny’s recurring dream he discusses.

Lavender can be a pretty overwhelming taste, so I only added a tiny amount to not lose the apple taste. And, it really worked. I love Sour Apple Martinis regardless, but with the lavender (and the splash of water) it went down a bit smoother and according to Tom somehow made it taste more apple-y. For me, there wasn’t a huge difference between the original cocktail and my version, but I did prefer my variation with the lavender. The syrup just slightly enhanced the other flavours and made for a more balanced and easy-drinking cocktail.

Jonny Appleseed Synopsis

(from book cover)

Off the rez and trying to find ways to live, love, and survive in the big city, Jonny has one week before he must return to his home—and his former life—to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and heartbreaking recollections of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny’s life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages—and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.

Review

“One fact I’d learn is that leaving always hurts—home isn’t a space, it’s a feeling.”

This book is an interesting one, and a hard one to review. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in love with this book. However, I did still like it and enjoy reading it, parts of it just went for me. So, these mixed feelings are making it quite difficult to formulate my thoughts and feelings into words about this novel. But one thing that is easy to say, is that Jonny Appleseed is a wholly unique novel. The concept, the characters, and the unfiltered descriptions all really stood out to me. I mean it’s not every day you read a book about a “Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer and NDN glitter princess” from Manitoba.

Jonny, as you can tell from that description, is a special character. He stands out from any other character I’ve read for this blog. Unabashedly himself, overtly sexual, funny, and loving are just a few ways I would describe the titular character of this novel. I really liked Jonny. He’s an easy character to sympathize with, laugh with, and love with. He is fully fleshed out and there is a ton of depth to his character. And, most of the other characters are the same. Tias, Jordan, and Jonny’s mother and kokum all felt whole and unique as well. This fantastic character development was one of my biggest joys of reading this novel. They brought the book to life and made me more interested in what was happening or going to happen.

Apart from the characters, my favourite part of Jonny Appleseed is the writing. Whitehead is a beautiful writer. The descriptions were poetic and distinctive. I would never have thought to describe things how Whitehead does in this novel. His metaphors are profound and really just beautiful. And, there’s not many other ways to describe it apart from that as it truly was lovely.

But, it wasn’t just beautifully written it was also funny and important. The culture woven throughout this book is special. It’s not just a book about one Indigenous person, it’s a book about all Indigenous people. And how they share their traumas, loves, stories, and lives. The way Whitehead incorporated Cree words, discussions on life and community on and off the rez, and Cree legends and myths was seamless and brought so much to the book. I feel like I learned a lot about the Peguis Nation and the Indigenous people reading this book. But it also didn’t feel like a lesson. The learning just came naturally because of how well-incorporated everything was.

Unfortunately, it’s time to get into my negatives for this book. My first negative is that the novel was confusing at times. The “fevered dream” description in the synopsis really hits the nail on the head with this one. Throughout the novel we’re jumping backward and forward in time with no obvious separation. So, I sometimes thought I was reading about the present only to realize I was in the past and then I had to go back and figure out what was happening. At some points, it would shift back in time for one paragraph then be back in the present the next.

This fevered dream idea, however, did add to the beauty of Jonny Appleseed and made the story flow in an interesting way. But, it also made the story lack some plot to me. Yes there’s the underlying idea of getting back to the rez for the funeral, but the connection between that and what we read isn’t always clear. So, it often felt like I was just reading a biography rather than a story with a plot. Is this a huge negative? Not really as it was the intention of the novel to be a bit chaotic in this fevered dream state. But, it still wasn’t my favourite thing and, though it added to the beauty of the novel, it made me like it a little less.

Finally, my biggest negative with the novel (and this is going to make me sound bad as it’s also what has been highly praised about this one) is the abundance of sex. Yes, Jonny is a sex worker and a large part of the book is about queer love and sex and relationships. And, I am fine with all of that. But, the graphic descriptions of sex and the inclusion of something extremely sexual on practically every page didn’t do it for me.

Given the topics of the novel, discussion of sex is necessary and the book honestly wouldn’t be the same without a lot of it. But, I wish it hadn’t relied so heavily on this topic. Lessening it slightly (specifically in descriptions of other things) wouldn’t have really changed the novel. And for me the real joy in this novel came from the bits of culture added in and the characters and their relationships. So, describing bath water and flowers in a sexual way just seemed like overkill. But, a lot of the sexual components of the novel, especially the LGBTQ2+ moments and Jonny’s life as a sex worker, were necessary, important, and added depth to the novel that isn’t often seen and I liked them in this sense.

Also, this complaint is a more subjective one, so if you’re ok with reading extremely sexual literature then you may not be as put off by the abundance of sexual metaphors and descriptions. But, if you don’t want to have sex and sexual terminology thrown at you on every page then maybe sit this one out (Grammie I’m looking at you).

Overall, I did like this novel I just didn’t love it. The writing, characters, and cultural discussion were refreshingly unique and modern. And I really loved the representation this novel had for communities that are marginalized and often stereotyped. Whitehead clearly wrote from his heart and from what he knows and it made the novel and characters in it believable, relatable, and special. However, I did have a few bigger negatives with this one and those unfortunately brought my rating down a bit. But, I would still recommend Jonny Appleseed to anyone who is interested in an intense look at Indigenous and LGBTQ2+ life in Canada. And, I definitely recommend the cocktail this week as Sour Apple Martinis are one of my favourite drinks! Thanks for reading.

My Rating:

Thanks for reading! And, if you read the book or try the cocktail let me know in a comment or on Instagram. Also, if you haven’t yet read my previous reviews, I recommend reading My Dark and Stormy Vanessa and [Tears of] The Prophets if you liked this one!

Teghann

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