Why did I wait so long to pick this up?

Making Love with the Land will surely become Joshua Whitehead's most important and iconic work.

Part memoir and theoretical creative non-fiction, Whitehead's beautiful, dizzying verbosity covers so much ground, from Covid lockdowns to video games to eating disorders to sweetgrass. And the disciplines explored are many. Linguistics, gut microbiology, ecology, sociology, querr theory, the arts... it is all knotted together in this manuscript.

I especially enjoyed his exploration of the role of the storyteller within Indigenous societies (that of a legend-speaker, storyteller, historian, cultural theorist, journalist, poet) and how he came to be one.

I will be picking up everything Joshua Whitehead writes, as he becomes one of the most important voices in Canadian literature.

Making Love with the Land is a stunning, poetic, and intimate collection of creative essays that explore the relationships between body, language, & the land. While Joshua Whitehead’s prose is exquisite, it’s also a bit obscure, and difficult to parse at times - however, making our way through the flowery and creative language is a journey worth taking. The essays in this collection explore the experiences of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma, while also highlighting joy and sensuality - in a genre-bending style of prose that’s unique and remarkable. Readers must approach this collection free from expectations, with a mind open to the beauty, the glory, and the creativity of words put together with words, in order to create something unexpected (and compelling).

After the success of Jonny Appleseed I couldn't wait to see what Joshua would write next. This time around it's in the form of an essay collection where they talk about a myriad of topics from being Indigenous and Queer/Two-Spirited to topics like disordered eating or using Video Games as a form of escapism.

Each essay was interesting and I felt honoured for the chance to read Joshua's words where he opens up, completely vulnerable to the reader. This is one of my top Non-Fiction books this year and I have been recommending it when I can.

I can't wait to see what Joshua does next,

A really beautifully written book that felt like I was reading something personal and private. Whitehead has become a go-to author of mine after 'Jonny Appleseed' and I think I actually enjoyed this book more than his novel for various reasons. As a current graduate student, I could relate to a lot of things Whitehead talks about when it comes to his graduate school experience and time in academia. I also appreciated how he picked apart phrases and common sayings to question what they mean. There was a lyricism in how he braided his language nêhiyawêwin with English, that I knew wasn't for me, but made me feel the same warmth when I read books that use some of my language. He has such a way with words and I am forever in awe of his writing. This book was about struggle, joy, and for me, about decolonizing what it means to engage with literature whether its writing, reading, etc.

Outstanding essays focused on embodiment: in land, sexuality, kinship, language. Any attempt at analysis from me is doomed to fall short; had the wonderful experience of formulating analysis and then having it systematically taken down on-page in a subsequent essay. Writing is beautiful, detailed, evocative, visceral. Plenty of content warnings: colonialism, sexual violence, eating disorders, genocide, death of kin. This is an integral, wrenching, personal biotext well worth reading—particularly slowly.

This book is “biotextual”, which Whitehead basically describes as autobiographical in a disobedient way. They write about how colonial categorization of literature is and how they don’t want to conform to colonial labels for their work. They are a storyteller who tells us about Indigeneity, queerness, pain, and joy. There are many personal anecdotes in this book, but there are also so many thought provoking essays and discussions about intersectionality, being queer and/or Indigenous in academia and while living in small towns, about grief and laughter, and so so much more!

A huge theme is language and literature, and the really cool thing is they used Cree throughout the book with translations and footnotes here and there. The language that Whitehead uses, whether in English or Cree, is so beautiful and poetic. Their words create such vibrant and vivid imagery that it feels as though you really are the “you” that they continuously refer to in the chapters.

There are so many profound lines of thinking in this book and almost half of my copy is highlighted! So many good points about Indigenous innocence and youth, Indigenous literature, queer isolation, historic trauma (like living through pandemics), and even things like Indigenous laughter at funerals.

I related to so many things, and learned so many more! This book is truly stunning and is a MUST read.

Overall, I 1000% recommend this book and all of Whitehead’s over works too. It’s like reading poetry in motion.

An absolutely incredible essay collection from the immensely talented Joshua Whitehead. The reflections on being Indigenous, the violence of colonialism, identity as Two-Spirit, rejecting and still trapped by the confines of colonial rules about writing, this is a raw, sharp collection.