LGBTQ2S+

Evocative of Miriam Toews’ A Complicated Kindness and Diane Warren’s Cool Water, Tara Gereaux’s novel, set in small-town Saskatchewan, dissects themes of Métis identity, female identity and motherhood, aging and regret, and finally, acceptance.

Nothing ever seems to happen in the small town of Saltus. At the Harvest Gold Inn and Restaurant off Highway 53, two waitresses spend their evening shifts delivering Salisbury steak specials and slices of pie to the regulars. But everything changes when Nadine, a headstrong single mother, and her teenager, Aaron, arrive at the Gold, where Aaron—who has repeatedly been denied appropriate gender-affirming medical care from the mainstream system—undergoes a near-fatal procedure performed by an unqualified and eccentric recluse who lives on the outskirts of Saltus.

The events that transpire that evening force each townsperson to look long and hard at themselves, at their own identities, and at the traumas and experiences that have shaped them. Told from multiple perspectives, Saltus reveals the complexities inherent in accepting the identities of loved ones, and the tragic consequences that unfold if they are ignored. It is a story about relationships with others, and, even more importantly, with ourselves.

Reviews
"Calm, measured and fearless, Gereaux skillfully, and with compassion, depicts a community in the aftermath of trauma. Based on true events, this work of fiction is both haunting and human. Gereaux’s strength is in her characters—you can’t help but feel their torments as if they were your own." — Lisa Bird-Wilson, February 2021

Additional Information
304 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

Part mystery, part ghost story, a long unsolved murder becomes the singular fixation of an Indigenous American man living in far northern Minnesota as he grapples with his identity and that of his lover, a heavily closeted white man.

On an Ojibwe reservation called Languille Lake, within the small town of Geshig at the hub of the rez, two men enter into a secret romance. Marion Lafournier, a midtwenties gay Ojibwe man, begins a relationship with his former classmate Shannon, a white man who isn't ready to acknowledge his identity. While Marion is far more open about his sexuality, neither is immune to the realities of the lives of gay men in small towns and closed societies.

Then one night, while roaming the dark streets of Geshig, Marion unknowingly brings to life the spirit of a dog from beneath the elementary school playground. The mysterious revenant leads him to the grave of Kayden Kelliher, an Ojibwe basketball star who was murdered at the age of seventeen and whose presence still lingers in the memories of the townsfolk. While investigating the fallen hero's death, Marion discovers family connections and an old Ojibwe legend that may be the secret to unraveling the mystery he has found himself in.

Set on a reservation in far northern Minnesota, This Town Sleeps explores the many ways history, culture, landscape, and lineage shape our lives, our understanding of the world we inhabit, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of it all.

Reviews
“Elegant and gritty, angry and funny. Staples’s work is emotional without being sentimental. Dennis unmakes something in us, then remakes it, a quilt of characters that embody this town, this place, which sleeps but doesn’t dream, or it is all a dream we want to wake up from with its characters. We move through the dream that is this novel, unable to move or not move, arrested by the striking sentences and sentiments of a voice we can’t sleep to, one which wakes in us the ability to understand so much about ourselves and the way history and time weigh on us in ways it’s both understandable to stay asleep or to have to wake up from.” —Tommy Orange, author of There, There

"This novel is a town map, a crime map, a dream map of Geshig, Minnesota, its violent histories, its denials and desires. Marion Lafournier is a perfect tour guide because he knows everybody's secrets, and he sees clearly, even in the dark. Moody, a little noir, laced with the knife-blade humor only people who have been resisting genocide for five hundred years can pull off, and composed of riveting passages that refuse to look away, This Town Sleeps will haunt you with the beauty, despair, and hope of the characters whose lives it bears witness to. A rich and compelling debut." ––Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country

“Dennis Staples’ This Town Sleeps is part mystery, part family saga, part meditation. In language subtle and precise, it explores the echoing past, both tenuous and inescapable, illuminating the resonant powers of one’s physical and cultural landscapes. It wisely asks how the place of our being shapes not only our futures, but also our personal mythologies, how we understand ourselves. How it guides what we are and are not capable of. Both intimate and sweeping, This Town Sleeps is the work of a powerful, emerging hand. Its voice is already wise and knows to look for answers both between bodies—in the dark shadows of entwining limbs—and back across the paths of those who came before us. It knows the two are never far apart. This is a marvel of a first book.” —Derek Palacio, author of The Mortifications

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.49" x 8.23"

A tour-de-force debut novel about a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer young man and proud NDN glitter princess who must reckon with his past when he returns home to his reserve.

"You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine" is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by poet Joshua Whitehead.

Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez"--and his former life--to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.

Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of First Nations life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.

Awards

• 2021 Canada Reads winner

Reviews
"If we're lucky, we'll find one or two books in a lifetime that change the language of story, that manage to illuminate new curves in the flat vessels of old letters and words. This is one of those books. Jonny Appleseed gifts us with clarity in the shape of sharp, and medicine in the guise of soft -- and a sexy, powerful, broken, beautiful hero who has enough capacity in the dent of a clavicle to hold all the tears of his family. This book gives us back the land of curb and field, trailer and ledge, and the community -- in all its rusted and complicated glory. Most importantly, this book gifts us with the opportunity to hear the innovative and the ancient in the prose of a new literary goddess, Joshua Whitehead." ―Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves

"Joshua Whitehead redefines what queer Indigenous writing can be in his powerful debut novel. Jonny Appleseed transcends genres of writing to blend the sacred and the sexual into a vital expression of Indigenous desire and love. Reading it is a coming home to bodies, stories, and experiences of queer Indigenous life that has never been so richly and honestly shown before. This book is an honour song to every queer NDN body who has ever lived and it will transform the universe with its beauty and magic." ―Gwen Benaway, author of Passage

Educator Information
Caution: graphic/mature content such as sexual descriptions.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.50" x 8.00"