It is my great pleasure to be on the blog tour for this great read.
Oh! What's occurring?
Set in the valleys of South Wales at the tail end of Thatcher’s Britain, The Green Indian Problem is the story of Green, a seven year-old with intelligence beyond his years – an ordinary boy with an extraordinary problem: everyone thinks he’s a girl.
Green sets out to try and solve the mystery of his identity, but other issues keep cropping up – God, Father Christmas, cancer – and one day his best friend goes missing, leaving a rift in the community and even more unanswered questions. Dealing with deep themes of friendship, identity, child abuse and grief, The Green Indian Problem is, at heart, an all-too-real story of a young boy trying to find out why he’s not like the other boys in his class.
Bobs and Books honest review:
This is unlike anything I've ever read in the best possible way.
Green is a fabulous character and the book being told from his perspective makes that even more known. He is definitely wise beyond his years, and how he soaks up events, situations- and phrases is endearing and makes it even more powerful coming from a 7-8yr old boy.
Being a nineties child myself, its hard to imagine how gender identity would have been handled in the 80s/early 90s but I can make a fair guess. Whilst things are improving all the time (and this is a reminder of the positive steps happened since) its also a reminder that there is much more to do. Its handled in this book absolutely brilliantly.
This focuses on some very tricky subject matters on top of the gender conflict. Loss, grief, and domestic violence all feature, and told from innocent eyes makes it all the more poignant. Hats off to the author for tackling these subjects with such humility and ingenuity.
There are two things that make me smile in particular this read. Firstly its set in the Welsh valleys! The coal mining situation is topical, and the welsh lifestyle comes to life in its terraced housing and village gossip. Great to see Wales represented. Secondly, is the use of colour in this book. Green often describes scenarios or people as different colours. Things that are bad are often described as black or grey whereas happiness is pink, or lighter colours. Green himself changes his name from Jade as part of the identity finding.
This one will stay with me.
Author bio:
Jade Leaf Willetts is a writer from Llanbradach, a strange, beautiful village in South Wales. He writes about extraordinary characters in ordinary worlds and has a penchant for unreliable narrators. The Green Indian Problem, his first novel, was longlisted for the 2020 Bridport Prize in the Peggy Chapman-Andrews category. Jade’s poetry has been published by Empty Mirror, PoV Magazine and Unknown Press. His short story, ‘An Aversion to Popular Amusements’ was shortlisted for the inaugural Janus Literary Prize. He is currently working on a coming of age follow-up to The Green Indian Problem.
Resource links:
Author’s website: https://jadeleafwilletts.com
Jade Leaf Willetts is a writer from Llanbradach, a strange, beautiful village in South Wales. He writes about extraordinary characters in ordinary worlds and has a penchant for unreliable narrators. The Green Indian Problem, his first novel, was longlisted for the 2020 Bridport Prize in the Peggy Chapman-Andrews category. Jade’s poetry has been published by Empty Mirror, PoV Magazine and Unknown Press. His short story, ‘An Aversion to Popular Amusements’ was shortlisted for the inaugural Janus Literary Prize. He is currently working on a coming of age follow-up to The Green Indian Problem.
Resource links:
Author’s website: https://jadeleafwilletts.com
Out 30 March.
Renard Press: https://renardpress.com/books/the-green-indian-problem/
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