Virtual Book Club - Making Love With the Land by Joshua Whitehead

Our 70th(!!!) book is Making Love With the Land by Joshua Whitehead.

BOOK:
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.

CONTENT NOTES*:
Graphic
Eating disorder, Racism, Colonisation

Moderate
Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Fatphobia

Minor
Child death, Homophobia

*Content warnings pulled from Storygraph. If any were missed, please message Maura and they will amend the event page!

LOCATION: our homes

ACCESS:
Since this discussion will take place over zoom, live captioning/transcription is available through zoom and will be enabled. Send other accessibility questions or requests to Maura and they will try to work out an appropriate solution for you.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION FOR COVER PHOTO: Author photo next to book cover. The author is leaning against a wall and looking at the camera sideways. He has brown hair to his shoulders, has a mustache and beard, is wearing round circular framed glasses, and is wearing long beaded earrings. He is a Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation. The book cover has the title Making Love With the Land on a green background with a person tangled up in leaves on it.