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Making Love with the Land

Essays

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available
A moving and deeply personal excavation of Indigenous beauty and passion in a suffering world
In prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly queer and visceral, raw and autobiographical, Joshua Whitehead writes of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma. Deeply rooted within, he reaches across the anguish to create a new form of storytelling he calls "biostory"—beyond genre, and entirely sovereign. Through this narrative perspective, Making Love with the Land recasts mental health struggles and our complex emotional landscapes from a nefarious parasite on his (and our) well-being to kin, even a relation, no matter what difficulties they present to us. Whitehead ruminates on loss and pain without shame or ridicule but rather highlights waypoints for personal transformation. Written in the aftermath of heartbreak, before and during the pandemic, Making Love with the Land illuminates this present moment in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are rediscovering old ways and creating new ones about connection with and responsibility toward each other and the land.
Intellectually audacious and emotionally compelling, Whitehead shares his devotion to the world in which we live and brilliantly—even joyfully—maps his experience on the land that has shaped stories, histories, and bodies from time immemorial.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 29, 2022
      Novelist Whitehead (Jonny Appleseed) examines the relationship between queerness, the body, and language in his intimate first foray into nonfiction. In “I Own a Body That Wants to Break,” Whitehead reflects on his experience with disordered eating, finding that the root for the word body in Middle English means “trunk”: “Again this blanket of flesh is rooted in the land,” he writes. “Writing as a Rupture” considers genres and what autobiography means (“In what ways is an autobiography also an obituary?”), while “The Year in Video Gaming” examines how Fortnite served as “a medium for escapism, entertainment, and social enrichment” when his cousins turned to it after a death in the family. “My Aunties Are Wolverines” is a reflection on mourning, and “Who Names the Rez Dog Rez” asks “What does loneliness mean to a rez dog whose foot is wounded from a trapper’s coils?” Whitehead weaves Indigenous Cree language throughout the essays to powerful effect, and though his metaphors can at times be winding, he asks moving questions without resorting to simple answers—“Can a body be sovereign if you continually self-destruct it?” he asks, and “What does it mean to let go of the self?” Fans of the personal essay will relish Whitehead’s evocative, rich prose. Agent: Stephanie Sinclair, CookeMcDermid.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Joshua Whitehead performs his essay collection, which centers on Indigiqueer identity and living in an Indigenous body in a society formed by colonialism. Each essay intimately presents Whitehead's perspective as he examines the world around him and works through discussions of intergenerational trauma, the stories of his family's experience, and Indigenous storytelling. Whitehead contemplates his personal pain and transformation, what they mean for him as an artist, and how these ideas will change his writing. Throughout the collection, much of Whitehead's narration remains emotionally removed from his deeply personal subject matter. With his stunning prose, Whitehead's writing is emotionally complex, but his performance is a missed opportunity to echo that emotional depth for listeners. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

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Languages

  • English

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