Johnny Delivers
Johnny Delivers
By Wayne Ng
Eighteen-year-old Johnny Wong’s dead-end life consists of delivering Chinese food and holding his chaotic family together in Toronto. When his sweet but treacherous Auntie, the mahjong queen, calls in their family debt, he fears the family will lose the Red Pagoda restaurant and break apart.
Invoking the spirit of Bruce Lee and in cahoots with his stoner friend Barry, Johnny tries to save his family by taking up a life of crime delivering weed with a side of egg rolls. He chases his first love, but his hands are already full with his emotionally distant mother, his dream-crushing father, and his reckless, sardonic little sister.
As he fights to stay ahead of his Auntie, sordid family secrets unfold. With lives on the line, the only way out is an epic mahjong battle. While Johnny is on a mission to figure out who he is and what he wants, he must learn that help can come from within and that our heroes are closer than we think.
Dripping with 1970s nostalgia, Johnny Delivers is a gritty and humorous standalone sequel to the much-loved and award-winning Letters From Johnny.
Details
Details
(Essential Prose)
978-1-77183-890-0
283 pages |
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Reviews
Reviews
Ng excels at character-building and dialogue and he’s got style to burn. Add all that to a vision of a vanished Toronto – the seventies, when Yorkville was skid row and Chinatown began and ended at Dundas and Spadina. It’s all here along with a great plot about a pair of kids peddling pot. This is a wonderful trip to old Toronto, full of laughs and a tear or two. Not to be missed. I look forward to more from Ng as Johnny grows up.
MARGARET CANNON, The Globe and Mail
Johnny Delivers is a wild ride filled with memorable moments both poignant and hilarious. Wayne Ng delivers big time.
IAN COLFORD, The Miramichi Reader (named Johnny Delivers Top Fiction 2024)
Every page of Johnny Delivers was full of excitement. This coming-of-age story really has it all – a hero, a villain, a sidekick, and a moral battle to be fought. Johnny Delivers by Wayne Ng gives an exciting, emotional, and sometimes hilarious account of what it means to grow up “different” while trying to fit in, make good choices and hold a family together. With memorable characters, an intense plot, and a history lesson all rolled into one, Johnny Delivers is a must-read and a story you will not soon forget.
LAURA PATTERSON, The Seaboard Review
Wayne Ng’s Johnny Delivers, hits it out of the park. This hilarious and enthralling account of a teenager’s quest to save his family restaurant and keep his parents together by becoming a purveyor of marijuana is a must-read…Ng’s cutting social critique is perfectly complemented by a sense of nostalgia and the aspiration for acceptance by one’s peers…Ng draws on decades of experience as a social worker for the Ottawa Catholic School Board, giving him a wealth of insights and contacts with young people that inform his characters and plots.
IAN THOMAS SHAW, The Ottawa Review of Books
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Awards
Awards
About the author
Wayne Ng was born in downtown Toronto to Chinese immigrants who fed him a steady diet of bitter melons and kung fu movies. Ng works as a school social worker in Ottawa but lives to write, travel, eat and play, preferably all at the same time. He is an award-winning author and traveler who continues to push his boundaries from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Author of The Family Code, Letters From Johnny, and Finding The Way: A Novel of Lao Tzu. Connect with him at waynengwrites.com