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Making Love with the Land
Much-anticipated non-fiction from the author of the Giller-longlisted, GG-shortlisted and Canada Reads-winning novel Jonny Appleseed
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In the last few years, following the publication of his debut novel Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead has emerged as one of the most exciting and important new voices on Turtle Island. Now, in this first non-fiction work, Whitehead brilliantly explores Indigeneity, queerness, and the relationships between body, language and land through a variety of genres (essay, memoir, notes, confession). Making Love with the Land is a startling, heartwrenching look at what it means to live as a queer Indigenous person in the rupture between identities. In sharp, surprising, unique pieces--a number of which have already won awards--Whitehead illuminates this particular moment, in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are navigating new (and old) ideas about the land. He asks: What is our relationship and responsibility towards it? And how has the land shaped our ideas, our histories, our very bodies?
Here is an intellectually thrilling, emotionally captivating love song--a powerful revelation about the library of stories land and body hold together, waiting to be unearthed and summoned into word.
In the last few years, following the publication of his debut novel Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead has emerged as one of the most exciting and important new voices on Turtle Island. Now, in this first non-fiction work, Whitehead brilliantly explores Indigeneity, queerness, and the relationships between body, language and land through a variety of genres (essay, memoir, notes, confession). Making Love with the Land is a startling, heartwrenching look at what it means to live as a queer Indigenous person in the rupture between identities. In sharp, surprising, unique pieces--a number of which have already won awards--Whitehead illuminates this particular moment, in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are navigating new (and old) ideas about the land. He asks: What is our relationship and responsibility towards it? And how has the land shaped our ideas, our histories, our very bodies?
Here is an intellectually thrilling, emotionally captivating love song--a powerful revelation about the library of stories land and body hold together, waiting to be unearthed and summoned into word.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 23, 2022
226 people are currently reading
12092 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Whitehead
8 books854 followersJoshua Whitehead is an Oji-Cree, Two-Spirit storyteller and academic from Peguis First Nation on Treaty 1 territory in Manitoba. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Indigenous literatures and cultures at the University of Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. His most recent book of poetry, Full-Metal Indigiqueer, was shortlisted for the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. In 2016, his poem “mihkokwaniy” won Canada’s History Award for Aboriginal Arts and Stories (for writers aged 19–29), which included a residency at the Banff Centre. He has been published widely in Canadian literary magazines such as Prairie Fire, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, Red Rising Magazine, and Geez Magazine’s Decolonization issue.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 278 reviews
January 22, 2023
Now Nominated for the PEN AMERICA Open Book Award 2023
Joshua Whitehead, author of the fantastic Jonny Appleseed, is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation who holds a PhD in Indigenous Literatrures and Cultures. In this essay collection, he contemplates Indigeneity, queerness, and mental health under settler colonialism in North America. In ten artful texts, Whitehead combines the personal (familial trauma, an eating disorder and sexual assault, e.g.) with the political while challenging standards and definitions as declared by Western academia.
I have always been particularly fascinated by Whitehead's arguments regarding the nature of storytelling and how the physical and the psychological intersect when a story is manifested from a person's mind over their breath into the physical world, where narratives create and change reality. Orality and community building through experiences shared via narrative are a major concern of this collection, which is partly challenging to read when the author merges academic language, Cree expressions, anecdotes and high literature to make complex points about identity and society - but the effort is so worth it. And of course, the land that Indigenous peoples and settlers live on plays an important role in many of the texts.
Whitehead's concept to render the essayistic artful, to craft creative non fiction, is also reflected in the fact that this collection, long before its publication, was the basis of performance art.
Joshua Whitehead's Jonny Appleseed was an extremely important novel for me: It taught me so much and I really loved its wonderful, multi-faceted protagonist. "Making Love with the Land" now appeals to the academic in me, but it does so in an artistic, absorbing way. I hope Whitehead will go on writing for a long time.
Joshua Whitehead, author of the fantastic Jonny Appleseed, is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation who holds a PhD in Indigenous Literatrures and Cultures. In this essay collection, he contemplates Indigeneity, queerness, and mental health under settler colonialism in North America. In ten artful texts, Whitehead combines the personal (familial trauma, an eating disorder and sexual assault, e.g.) with the political while challenging standards and definitions as declared by Western academia.
I have always been particularly fascinated by Whitehead's arguments regarding the nature of storytelling and how the physical and the psychological intersect when a story is manifested from a person's mind over their breath into the physical world, where narratives create and change reality. Orality and community building through experiences shared via narrative are a major concern of this collection, which is partly challenging to read when the author merges academic language, Cree expressions, anecdotes and high literature to make complex points about identity and society - but the effort is so worth it. And of course, the land that Indigenous peoples and settlers live on plays an important role in many of the texts.
Whitehead's concept to render the essayistic artful, to craft creative non fiction, is also reflected in the fact that this collection, long before its publication, was the basis of performance art.
Joshua Whitehead's Jonny Appleseed was an extremely important novel for me: It taught me so much and I really loved its wonderful, multi-faceted protagonist. "Making Love with the Land" now appeals to the academic in me, but it does so in an artistic, absorbing way. I hope Whitehead will go on writing for a long time.
November 6, 2022
Making Love with the Land is an essay collection that can be a bit in the weeds with theory, but can also be deeply vulnerable and painful. The author touches on a history of disordered eating, queerness, indigenaity, sexual assault, finding your place and more.
Some essays are much more focused on literary theory or ideas about being Indigenous. At times it's moving, other times a gut punch to read. And sometimes I only partially understood what the author was getting at, for which I am probably at fault. This is so personal and grounded in specific experiences I'm loathe to give it a rating, but based on my own connection with the material, four stars seems about right. Your mileage may vary.
The author narrates the work themselves, though I didn't find their narrative style to be the most engaging. It was okay, and I understand why you might try not to be too emotive reading about your own trauma, but I think a different narrator might have been beneficial in this case. I received an audio review copy via Libro. FM, all opinions are my own.
Some essays are much more focused on literary theory or ideas about being Indigenous. At times it's moving, other times a gut punch to read. And sometimes I only partially understood what the author was getting at, for which I am probably at fault. This is so personal and grounded in specific experiences I'm loathe to give it a rating, but based on my own connection with the material, four stars seems about right. Your mileage may vary.
The author narrates the work themselves, though I didn't find their narrative style to be the most engaging. It was okay, and I understand why you might try not to be too emotive reading about your own trauma, but I think a different narrator might have been beneficial in this case. I received an audio review copy via Libro. FM, all opinions are my own.
September 22, 2022
This is the kind of collection where every single sentence left me in awe. The deeply personal, powerful observations, the breathtaking prose, the deconstruction and decolonization of genre (the discussion around this in this book single-handedly changed so much of my previous understanding of literature as a whole), all of it, just blew me away. I highly recommend the audiobook experience - I feel so humbled by and thankful for it!
September 14, 2022
"I must remember that a story can be eaten like a body."
What an absolute GIFT this book is! This collection is made up of ten essays that, broadly speaking, ponder language, pain and bodies, with each one hitting even harder than the last. The highlight of the collection for me was "Me, The Joshua Tree," a letter to his ex-lover that had me ugly-crying, but I also adored "A Geography of Queer Woundings, "Writing As A Rupture" and "I Own A Body That Wants To Break." Whitehead writes in such an intimate, poetic and vulnerable way that's truly like nothing else. I haven't felt this moved by a book in a long time and am so grateful Whitehead shared this collection with the world.
What an absolute GIFT this book is! This collection is made up of ten essays that, broadly speaking, ponder language, pain and bodies, with each one hitting even harder than the last. The highlight of the collection for me was "Me, The Joshua Tree," a letter to his ex-lover that had me ugly-crying, but I also adored "A Geography of Queer Woundings, "Writing As A Rupture" and "I Own A Body That Wants To Break." Whitehead writes in such an intimate, poetic and vulnerable way that's truly like nothing else. I haven't felt this moved by a book in a long time and am so grateful Whitehead shared this collection with the world.
January 3, 2023
I am totally in love with Joshua's writing!
I read Johnny Appleseed last year and adored the style it was delivered with.
When I heard there was a collection of essays coming out from the same author?
Hello pre-order!
Sooo worth it; Whitehead has this weird way of taking tragedy or heartbreak and intertwining it with the most beautiful words.
I started off reading the hard cover and quickly decided to get the audio as well.
The audio (read by the author) was fabulous. Listening to the Cree pronunciations while seeing them in print...chef's kiss!
There are a lot of hard topics tackled in this and he does it with extremely open and raw emotions.
If you have not experience Joshua Whitehead's writing yet, this would be a great place to start!
I read Johnny Appleseed last year and adored the style it was delivered with.
When I heard there was a collection of essays coming out from the same author?
Hello pre-order!
Sooo worth it; Whitehead has this weird way of taking tragedy or heartbreak and intertwining it with the most beautiful words.
I started off reading the hard cover and quickly decided to get the audio as well.
The audio (read by the author) was fabulous. Listening to the Cree pronunciations while seeing them in print...chef's kiss!
There are a lot of hard topics tackled in this and he does it with extremely open and raw emotions.
If you have not experience Joshua Whitehead's writing yet, this would be a great place to start!
November 19, 2022
This collection of essays, a hybrid of personal reflections, social commentary, and academic musings, is a mixed bag of reading experiences. Some read like long rambling journal entries, others like confessions to a friend or prison warden. And then many contained references to other authors, intelligentsia, or some secret salon participants.
His personal disclosures and raw reflections are frequently outright painful and reflect deep trauma and unresolved hurt. The social analyses are the most insightful and rewarding as they lay bare the systemic harm and a certain level of indifference or willful disregard. However, the "academic and philosophical musings" can be painstakingly esoteric and illegible. One essay will often be a combination of all three of the above.
I guessed this book is his PhD dissertation and, as a whole, projects as such. At the essay level, I think each piece is more impactful. I'd recommend reading one essay at a time, perhaps two if you haven't been gutted or overwhelmed with "intellectual floof." Whitehead already asserts an unapologetic stance on writing to please or coddle and that is admirable (I grasp that he is ambivalent about this position as he aches to be accepted or at least understand and/or seen somehow). When combined with or under the "dissertation" framework, the reading experience becomes a whirlwind with threads of logic or experiences wildly whipping in chaotic slaps.
I will admit that the use of the Oji-Cree language, after a certain point, got to be tiresome. Again, Whitehead frames this as a right of authenticity (and rightly so). And, as a reader, I felt it functioned as a speed bump, one with a smarting incline: the car struck a deep pothole. Lasty, I also admit that I am and I do, at times, the very thing Whitehead critiques about Western culture or settler colonialism.
I found many gorgeous passages (please see below) and it's here where it excels. He's poetic and evocatively pained and hurtful (and lashes out). I think, all in all, I prefer a structure of an overall story structure for his writing as it provides overarching scaffolding.
Thanks to the University of Minnesota Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Some quotes:
I dog-ear Ocean's page and make an animal story, I am looking for a wilderness in the act of being wild; I, here, a rez dog. I haven't seen you in a dog's age, by which I mean I haven't seen myself in ages.
Hand tightened around my collar, you bring yourself into me with the force of a bookbinder--even this assemblage of sound drips with violence and I am wet with black ink. When you are done, you promise me a home, in its largest connotations, and I reassemble done as doom, home being a torture chamber, a cage, kennel, the terrible weight of pounds....
...I know the night happened only by these signs: there are feathers in the carpet and a pillow with a concave, like a contact lens. I can never fully see if I'm the feather or the wool.
...I spend an ornate amount of time writing in bed, splayed on my stomach in the fevered hours of the evening or wee hours of the morning, stitching thoughts, images, affects, and conversations into a quilt of baroque textures. For me, the bedroom becomes a space ripe with possibility, a type of shard intimacy and vulnerability between myself and those I house like lovers spooned into vertebrate.
Perhaps, yes, fantasy and gaming ares coping mechanisms, but what I've come to learn through this mechanism is that pimatisowin, or the act of living, is about coming to and into an embodied world that acts much like a virtual one. We are always butting (and budding) up against the coping mechanisms of others: how they perform, their speech acts, how they respond to us, inquire about us, answer us, ignore us, treat us, respect us....
...What I need to survive, most of all right now, is for queerness to mean something more than consumption and hierarchical striving...
...I have long argued that the physical body we inhabit, in its zippered coat of skin, will always be tied to the body of text we create--and I think this particularly true for bipoc (Black, Indigenous, and peoples of colour), disabled, queer, and/or women (and any intersection therein) writers...
...Stories are oratory, even when written on the page, for they require animations in order to live--and such animations, in nehiyaw fashion, make story an animate being, living vocabulary, kind we are accountable to...
I have pinned myself to the concept of an otacimow, a storyteller, something that may sound simple in English but in nehiyawewin denotes in its root, otaci, that we are not only stories but also legend-speakers. Which is to say we are historians and cultural theorists, informers; which is also to say we are academics and researchers and confessors; which is also to say that we are journalists and poets. If autobiography within Western linguistic systems is an obituary, then in nehiyawewin itis a wildly engendered genre of returning and of revival; of transplanting the past into the future and glimmering in the hope of "now."
One of the perplexing things that interests me in the contemporary consumption of bipoc and queer writing is that our texts are readily misread as confession, non-fiction, memoir, boudoir.
I ate pain like a glutton. Even my mind felt heavy.
We, of course, as indigenous peoples, know that finality is simply an opening into ceremony.
His personal disclosures and raw reflections are frequently outright painful and reflect deep trauma and unresolved hurt. The social analyses are the most insightful and rewarding as they lay bare the systemic harm and a certain level of indifference or willful disregard. However, the "academic and philosophical musings" can be painstakingly esoteric and illegible. One essay will often be a combination of all three of the above.
I guessed this book is his PhD dissertation and, as a whole, projects as such. At the essay level, I think each piece is more impactful. I'd recommend reading one essay at a time, perhaps two if you haven't been gutted or overwhelmed with "intellectual floof." Whitehead already asserts an unapologetic stance on writing to please or coddle and that is admirable (I grasp that he is ambivalent about this position as he aches to be accepted or at least understand and/or seen somehow). When combined with or under the "dissertation" framework, the reading experience becomes a whirlwind with threads of logic or experiences wildly whipping in chaotic slaps.
I will admit that the use of the Oji-Cree language, after a certain point, got to be tiresome. Again, Whitehead frames this as a right of authenticity (and rightly so). And, as a reader, I felt it functioned as a speed bump, one with a smarting incline: the car struck a deep pothole. Lasty, I also admit that I am and I do, at times, the very thing Whitehead critiques about Western culture or settler colonialism.
I found many gorgeous passages (please see below) and it's here where it excels. He's poetic and evocatively pained and hurtful (and lashes out). I think, all in all, I prefer a structure of an overall story structure for his writing as it provides overarching scaffolding.
Thanks to the University of Minnesota Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Some quotes:
I dog-ear Ocean's page and make an animal story, I am looking for a wilderness in the act of being wild; I, here, a rez dog. I haven't seen you in a dog's age, by which I mean I haven't seen myself in ages.
Hand tightened around my collar, you bring yourself into me with the force of a bookbinder--even this assemblage of sound drips with violence and I am wet with black ink. When you are done, you promise me a home, in its largest connotations, and I reassemble done as doom, home being a torture chamber, a cage, kennel, the terrible weight of pounds....
...I know the night happened only by these signs: there are feathers in the carpet and a pillow with a concave, like a contact lens. I can never fully see if I'm the feather or the wool.
...I spend an ornate amount of time writing in bed, splayed on my stomach in the fevered hours of the evening or wee hours of the morning, stitching thoughts, images, affects, and conversations into a quilt of baroque textures. For me, the bedroom becomes a space ripe with possibility, a type of shard intimacy and vulnerability between myself and those I house like lovers spooned into vertebrate.
Perhaps, yes, fantasy and gaming ares coping mechanisms, but what I've come to learn through this mechanism is that pimatisowin, or the act of living, is about coming to and into an embodied world that acts much like a virtual one. We are always butting (and budding) up against the coping mechanisms of others: how they perform, their speech acts, how they respond to us, inquire about us, answer us, ignore us, treat us, respect us....
...What I need to survive, most of all right now, is for queerness to mean something more than consumption and hierarchical striving...
...I have long argued that the physical body we inhabit, in its zippered coat of skin, will always be tied to the body of text we create--and I think this particularly true for bipoc (Black, Indigenous, and peoples of colour), disabled, queer, and/or women (and any intersection therein) writers...
...Stories are oratory, even when written on the page, for they require animations in order to live--and such animations, in nehiyaw fashion, make story an animate being, living vocabulary, kind we are accountable to...
I have pinned myself to the concept of an otacimow, a storyteller, something that may sound simple in English but in nehiyawewin denotes in its root, otaci, that we are not only stories but also legend-speakers. Which is to say we are historians and cultural theorists, informers; which is also to say we are academics and researchers and confessors; which is also to say that we are journalists and poets. If autobiography within Western linguistic systems is an obituary, then in nehiyawewin itis a wildly engendered genre of returning and of revival; of transplanting the past into the future and glimmering in the hope of "now."
One of the perplexing things that interests me in the contemporary consumption of bipoc and queer writing is that our texts are readily misread as confession, non-fiction, memoir, boudoir.
I ate pain like a glutton. Even my mind felt heavy.
We, of course, as indigenous peoples, know that finality is simply an opening into ceremony.
September 25, 2022
This was a heartfelt collection of essays from award-winning 2 Spirit Indigenous author Joshua Whitehead. I really enjoyed the essays on his struggles always being misidentified with his fictional character in Jonny Appleseed. He also talks about his body dysmorphia, writing and the publishing industry in general as an Indigenous person and a variety of other topics. Great on audio read by the author too! Much thanks to Librofm for my complimentary ALC!
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May 12, 2022I finished this beautiful collection of writings last week. I'm a big fan of Joshua Whitehead's work and Making Love with the Land is no exception. This covers themes of Two-Spirit identity (comparing and going beyond queer and trans identity in non-Indigenous peoples), death and grief, fatphobia and eating disorders, language as resistance and life, sexuality and power, and the ongoing colonialism in so-called "Canada" and its effects on all the above.
It's not coming out until the tail-end of summer, but if you're interested in it, please pre-order this or request that your local library purchase it to drum up some support for this title.
I have a notes page full of beautiful, striking, powerful quotes from this collection. There are so many special chapters in this undefinable book. It's memoir, creative non-fiction, poetic, funny, heartbreaking, experimental, searing.
Lastly, I was personally able to read this through my local indie bookshop who were sent a copy for many to review. But I am concerned that I haven't heard or seen any Indigenous (esp Oji-Cree) readers receiving and reviewing these. I hope this changes in the coming couple months as Indigenous reviewers will understand and appreciate this book so much more than I can. If you are an Indigenous reader who receives arcs, I encourage you to reach out to the publisher and request it if you haven't been approached yet.
"Let me make for you a parting gift, a maskihkîwiwat acimowin. Let me play with language, make you something from the rubble of Cree that was stolen from you and me."
content warnings: racism, toxic masculinity, sexual coercion/sexual assault, fatphobia, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, terminal illness.
It's not coming out until the tail-end of summer, but if you're interested in it, please pre-order this or request that your local library purchase it to drum up some support for this title.
I have a notes page full of beautiful, striking, powerful quotes from this collection. There are so many special chapters in this undefinable book. It's memoir, creative non-fiction, poetic, funny, heartbreaking, experimental, searing.
Lastly, I was personally able to read this through my local indie bookshop who were sent a copy for many to review. But I am concerned that I haven't heard or seen any Indigenous (esp Oji-Cree) readers receiving and reviewing these. I hope this changes in the coming couple months as Indigenous reviewers will understand and appreciate this book so much more than I can. If you are an Indigenous reader who receives arcs, I encourage you to reach out to the publisher and request it if you haven't been approached yet.
"Let me make for you a parting gift, a maskihkîwiwat acimowin. Let me play with language, make you something from the rubble of Cree that was stolen from you and me."
content warnings: racism, toxic masculinity, sexual coercion/sexual assault, fatphobia, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, terminal illness.
September 28, 2022
Open your heart to lyrical, candid, alchemical prose from this wise Oji-nêhiyaw, Two-Spirit member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1 - Canada). Joshua Whitehead reflects on his life experiences and the writing of his earlier coming-of-age tale Jonny Appleseed and Full-metal Indigiqueer: Poems with genre-defying, thought-provoking, and vulnerable reveals on mental health. Gratitude to the author, University of Minnesota Press, and NetGalley for early access to this work!
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July 2, 2024
How DO you rate a memoir?
This wasn't entirely what I thought it was going to be (based on the title), but it was still thoughtful, gorgeously written, and super indigiqueer. I wasn't prepared for the ED triggers, so um, just be mindful of that when you enter.
This wasn't entirely what I thought it was going to be (based on the title), but it was still thoughtful, gorgeously written, and super indigiqueer. I wasn't prepared for the ED triggers, so um, just be mindful of that when you enter.
May 25, 2025
This book was a whole journey for me. Saying that this is a collection of essays is true and yet it doesn't seem to capture what this book is at all. For some reason I expected this to be a fairly quick read and it wasn't that at all. This is a layered poetic book, one that combines poetry with non-fiction, personal memoir bits with theory consideration, all of it saturated with social justice themes. One of the essays right from the beginning is about how western genres can never fully describe indigenous literature and this book right here is a good example of that, it's a plethora of things, one that goes in slow meandering pace that one has to adjust to and that might be hard to untangle at places, but once you get to the required mental space can be highly rewarding. I started it confused and ended on wanting a physical copy for my bookshelves, so I do consider it a huge success.
Now, to the separate essays... one thing I want to say right at the beginning is, the essays are written quite differently from each other, so if some if the first one gives you trouble, try skipping ahead to a different one before dnfing, you can always come back if you want to.
I did the audio (which is very nice and narrated by the author btw), which I think might not have been the best at the first go. I really loved the audio, but I needed to read this book slowly, to stop and consider and that's not something you can easily do when listening. As a result, I really quite want to re-read this already and also, I have two essays most forefront on my mind. The first one is very personal about death of Whitehead's aunt which was lovely and heartbreaking and made me listen to Joanne on repeat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEIw...). And then Me, the Joshua Tree written largely in second person as if in conversation with Whitehead's past lover, which is - among other things - about how the way we perceive relationship is totally fucked and colonial and heteropatriarchal. It also contains my favourite quite from the collection, so I am going to leave you on that:
Now, to the separate essays... one thing I want to say right at the beginning is, the essays are written quite differently from each other, so if some if the first one gives you trouble, try skipping ahead to a different one before dnfing, you can always come back if you want to.
I did the audio (which is very nice and narrated by the author btw), which I think might not have been the best at the first go. I really loved the audio, but I needed to read this book slowly, to stop and consider and that's not something you can easily do when listening. As a result, I really quite want to re-read this already and also, I have two essays most forefront on my mind. The first one is very personal about death of Whitehead's aunt which was lovely and heartbreaking and made me listen to Joanne on repeat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEIw...). And then Me, the Joshua Tree written largely in second person as if in conversation with Whitehead's past lover, which is - among other things - about how the way we perceive relationship is totally fucked and colonial and heteropatriarchal. It also contains my favourite quite from the collection, so I am going to leave you on that:
I think about the word "ex" - another word I want to remove from my lexicon because it is a signifier I cannot attribute to you, nitôtem. What a disgusting word, with its colonial sentiment of ownership, its finality; and what a heterosexual word. The word "ex" performs what it says; it cuts, disfigures, it snaps meaning off history. Instead, we will define ourselves for ourselves.
September 22, 2022
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
February 9, 2024
almost made me cry multiple times which is a feat that deserves five stars
June 8, 2022
I don't think you read this book, you experience it! Whitehead's lyrical prose generate images, emotions and physical sensations. The intimacy of his prose is exquisite. How can you read a sentence like "I bathe in your language; I dry myself off in the shelter of your sunburnt lashes" and not be moved? I was not familiar with any of his other work when I came to this book. After finishing, I want to read everything else he has authored. Each chapter a themed essay, he languages the experience and intersections of being both queer and indigenous, while simultaneously showing you why language can be an inferior and oppressive tool. He has the singular ability to wrap language around physical sensations in a way I have not seen. I read this book slowly, a little at a time so that I could soak it in the experience. I have made a note to listen to the audiobook when it is released. There are so many Oji-Cree phrases in the book that I think hearing them spoken would be lovely and add to the experience.
Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
November 12, 2022
Finished this a couple weeks ago and although some of the essays resonate more than others, that’s on me, not Joshua Whitehead. I continue to think about and marvel at what I read.
“I think of English as cerebral and nêhiyâwewin as kinetic; I move through language as it mutates in my flora.”
“I remember us this way, two Prairie queers celebrating the generosity of an accepting land and a blanket of family.”
“I think of English as cerebral and nêhiyâwewin as kinetic; I move through language as it mutates in my flora.”
“I remember us this way, two Prairie queers celebrating the generosity of an accepting land and a blanket of family.”
September 26, 2022
“No one mends in singularity.”
April 10, 2024
I am forced to ask myself if pain is a possession, even as I know full well the answer. Pain always adds an apostrophe before calling my name.
I finished this and I knew immediately that I need to reread it at some point. Hopefully some time soon. Whitehead's writing is gorgeous, full of humanity and insight and truths, and he mixes the autobiographical with the theoretical and the literary so well. I loved the format that these essays took, with large overarching ideas that would zero in on queerness and Indigeneity and the author's own experiences. They all felt really personal in a way that was sometimes painful to read, but I came away from each of them with a little slice of something. I loved especially the linguistic aspects of this, where the author would sometimes break down words, excavate them for meaning, tie it back to what he was discussing. I also loved the discussions about genre, the publishing industry and and the little violences that exist within.
Listened to the audiobook as read by the author, and it was really good, but I do wish I had had an actual copy to read along with, absorb more and take notes. Which is why I know I need to reread this; I know I could get a lot more out of it. Especially for the sections wherein native words were used, or he did a lot of wordplay. Still, I really adored the writing of this. There was a lot of profundity and beautiful imagery in a really short book, and it's clearly the work of a talented author. I can't wait to read from him again.
I think of suffering as I do a fruit fly. They are both attracted to fermentation, to the dead and dying, to decay, to sweetness, and sometimes all it takes is a soap bubble to kill them.
January 6, 2024
A powerful collection of genre-defying and deeply personal essays that has provoked much thought for me. This is a text that I know I will return to. Whitehead’s writing on writing – on genre, on language, on storytelling – I find especially compelling.
Content warnings: colonialism, racism, violence, death, grief, heteronormativity, queerphobia, discussion of disordered eating & ED treatment
Content warnings: colonialism, racism, violence, death, grief, heteronormativity, queerphobia, discussion of disordered eating & ED treatment
March 31, 2023
A beautiful, lyrical, and vulnerable collection of the connection between selves, our bodies, community, and land. I was particularly struck by the piece about Whitehead’s aunt.
July 16, 2024
I was really looking forward to this to expand my knowledge and gain some new insight but it wasn’t as revealing or the experience I thought it would be and I found myself a little disappointed. It was still a super interesting read, I guess my expectations were just a little too high!
February 6, 2023
A heartfelt collection of nonfiction that touches on how Whitehead fits into western society, art, storytelling, relationships, queerness, and more as an Indigenous Two Spirit person. Highly recommend, will be sharing quotes soon! Don't sleep on this important author of our time!
January 5, 2023
I regret to inform you all that this was one of my most anticipated reads from 2022 (I didn’t get to read it then but oh well) and yeah, I really didn’t like it. I love Joshua Whitehead’s writing and writing-wise, this was magnificent. But it felt very pretentious and self-congratulatory, sort of the two things I always fear to encounter in non-fiction.
I kept waiting for essays that would be especially interesting or offer something new to me, but topics such as writing with insomnia and playing RPGs aren't something I want to read about? Like, I do it all the time and other friends I have do it all the time, it's something so 'mundane/common' I don't see why it's presented in such a self-congratulatory manner (does this make sense?) anyways. I'm sorry I didn't like it.
I kept waiting for essays that would be especially interesting or offer something new to me, but topics such as writing with insomnia and playing RPGs aren't something I want to read about? Like, I do it all the time and other friends I have do it all the time, it's something so 'mundane/common' I don't see why it's presented in such a self-congratulatory manner (does this make sense?) anyways. I'm sorry I didn't like it.
December 3, 2022
I did the audio on this one and while the prose was beautiful I felt lost in one description to the next that I think I missed the forest for the trees. I couldn’t maintain focus. I knew he was talking about important concepts like the number of missing children in Canadian indigenous schools and his eating disorder and other stuff but I’ll get the concept, I’ll be in the story and then I’ll be out of the story because of his prose. I know it’s an oxymoron because he writes so well but it felt too convoluted for me. Almost like unpacking the meaning of a poem.
September 4, 2022
Disclaimer: I really really liked Jonny Appleseed and going into this book despite this being “Non-Fiction” I was expecting something similar.
I found Making Love To The Land to be intelligent and poignant, however I didn’t feel as connected to the essays that were shared. There were some I enjoyed more than others. I feel my own feelings towards this book are my own fault as I had different ideas as to what I thought the book was going to be about and/or sound like.
I found Making Love To The Land to be intelligent and poignant, however I didn’t feel as connected to the essays that were shared. There were some I enjoyed more than others. I feel my own feelings towards this book are my own fault as I had different ideas as to what I thought the book was going to be about and/or sound like.
June 12, 2023
(Rounding up from 3.5). I am grateful for Joshua Whitehead's work, and I found the essays in the second half of this book especially beautiful (I Own A Body That Wants to Break and Me, The Joshua Tree were my favourites). However, I found some of the writing felt a bit...clunky? There were a number of awkward metaphors and the (over-)use of flowery language and adjectives didn't always quite land with me. A part of me thinks this might have been a deliberate choice on Whitehead's part, but still.
June 7, 2025
This is a gorgeous collection of essays that I hope to revisit on paper (instead of the audiobook) after reading the author's other books.
February 7, 2023
This was such a beautiful collections of essays where Joshua Whitehead talked about personal things to themselves while making it relatable and gripping. Every essay intrigued me and kept me wanting to read. So much so, that I read this entire book in one session. I haven't read any of the author's other books, but this made me excited to. The author shares their experiences with being a First Nation person, their life being a Two-spirit person, their struggles with E.D.s and much more. Everything was written from the heart and showed the beauty in the world. Also, this is one of the most stunning covers I have ever seen.
Thank you to University of Minnesota Press and NetGalley for providing me with an eBook copy to review.
Thank you to University of Minnesota Press and NetGalley for providing me with an eBook copy to review.
June 8, 2023
ALC was given by Libro.fm & Univ Of Minnesota Press.
Content/Trigger Warnings: Loneliness, brief mentions of spiders, violence, talk of colonialism, mentions of cancer, talk of Native/Indigenous trauma, talk of depression, talk of anxiety, talk of genocide, Native/Indigenous racism, talk of fetishization of Native/Indigenous people, discussions of mental health, talk of suicide, talk of addiction, scenes of emesis, talk of internalized fat phobia, eating disorders, brief mentions of body dysmorphia, blood, talk of death, mentions loss of loved ones (in the past), grief, explicit sex
Actual rating: 4.5 ⭐
This is such a powerful and emotional book. I can't recommend the audiobook enough because there is Native language used in this book and the audiobook will definitely help with understanding pronunciation for many readers. Honestly, I don't know what to really say about this book except it's powerful, very raw and emotional, and very loudly Native/Indigenous. I definitely recommend being in the right headspace to read or listen to this book especially if you're a Native/Indigenous reader. There's a lot of Native history and trauma, both past and present, that's talked about in this book. There's also so many discussions surround mental health. So just be mindful of your mental spoons and take reading breaks if you need it. Overall, I'm just in 'awe' and I always feel like that whenever I listen to other Natives talk about their story, their life, and I'm just ending this book feeling very emotional, vulnerable in my own identity as a Mescalero Apache. I whole-heartedly recommend this with my whole chest especially if you're looking for more Native/Indigenous authors.
Instagram|Ko-fi|Throne
Content/Trigger Warnings: Loneliness, brief mentions of spiders, violence, talk of colonialism, mentions of cancer, talk of Native/Indigenous trauma, talk of depression, talk of anxiety, talk of genocide, Native/Indigenous racism, talk of fetishization of Native/Indigenous people, discussions of mental health, talk of suicide, talk of addiction, scenes of emesis, talk of internalized fat phobia, eating disorders, brief mentions of body dysmorphia, blood, talk of death, mentions loss of loved ones (in the past), grief, explicit sex
Actual rating: 4.5 ⭐
This is such a powerful and emotional book. I can't recommend the audiobook enough because there is Native language used in this book and the audiobook will definitely help with understanding pronunciation for many readers. Honestly, I don't know what to really say about this book except it's powerful, very raw and emotional, and very loudly Native/Indigenous. I definitely recommend being in the right headspace to read or listen to this book especially if you're a Native/Indigenous reader. There's a lot of Native history and trauma, both past and present, that's talked about in this book. There's also so many discussions surround mental health. So just be mindful of your mental spoons and take reading breaks if you need it. Overall, I'm just in 'awe' and I always feel like that whenever I listen to other Natives talk about their story, their life, and I'm just ending this book feeling very emotional, vulnerable in my own identity as a Mescalero Apache. I whole-heartedly recommend this with my whole chest especially if you're looking for more Native/Indigenous authors.
Instagram|Ko-fi|Throne
March 17, 2024
this book is reminiscent of ocean vuong’s “on earth, we’re briefly gorgeous” in that the prose feels more akin to poetry, making it a beautiful and lyrical read. some of the essays were a little too experimental for me to fully grasp, and i had to re-read them a couple of times to really wrap my head around them. not every one of them was a hit for me personally, but still, i thought it was worth reading.
the essays delve into vulnerable topics like disordered eating, sexual assault, and past relationships, but by far, the most powerful one for me was where whitehead discusses the work of BIPOC writers and how it is interpreted within the western canon. in particular, he talks about native american literature and storytelling and points out that there are many stories that are disregarded by other readers, publishers, and academia as being too fantastical or speculative. it made me re-evaluate the way i was reading this book itself and although i don’t have a firm answer to the questions whitehead raises, it was exceptionally thought-provoking.
the essays delve into vulnerable topics like disordered eating, sexual assault, and past relationships, but by far, the most powerful one for me was where whitehead discusses the work of BIPOC writers and how it is interpreted within the western canon. in particular, he talks about native american literature and storytelling and points out that there are many stories that are disregarded by other readers, publishers, and academia as being too fantastical or speculative. it made me re-evaluate the way i was reading this book itself and although i don’t have a firm answer to the questions whitehead raises, it was exceptionally thought-provoking.
December 16, 2024
There was a LOT in these essays, some parts I could relate to, other parts I learned from. Joshua is a fascinating story teller, and in particular I loved the way they speak of their writing process. The intimacy of which they know their characters, the way they think of them in bed and how to know every inch of each one. I could relate, and even at one point moved me to tears.
There's a lot of personal in these essays, so I can't say I recommend it to many. But I'm still a firm believer to become a better person, you need to listen to those who have struggled. Being Indiqueer (love this phrase for Indigenous & Queer), there's a whole level of discrimination that I will never understand as a white woman.
"All Art is Voyeurism"
There's a lot of personal in these essays, so I can't say I recommend it to many. But I'm still a firm believer to become a better person, you need to listen to those who have struggled. Being Indiqueer (love this phrase for Indigenous & Queer), there's a whole level of discrimination that I will never understand as a white woman.
"All Art is Voyeurism"
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