THE EXCITEMENT SURROUNDING its victory in March shot Joshua Whitehead’s debut novel Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press) to number one on Bookmanager’s paperback fiction chart. It’s a historic win: Whitehead became both the first Two-Spirit and first Indigenous author to win in its 20-year history. (The Indigenous ancestry of Joseph Boyden, who won for The Or in 2014, is widely disputed.)
Before this win, the 2018 novel about a Two- Spirit Indigenous sex worker coming home to his reservation wasn’t exactly under the radar.