The Dirt Chronicles by Kristyn Dunnion

This is perhaps the roughest look at Toronto yet. This novel is the story/stories of a collection of queer street kids, who steal, dumpster, and hustle to stay alive. They are very real people - you likely knew someone, in your youth, like one of these characters. They're like if the characters in Holding Still were a shade younger and a lot more fucked up.

At first I thought the book was a collection of similarly themed short stories, but then characters and situations started to become interwoven, and it is one coherent story. I'm not sure if it can be classified as a novel, as the point of view not only shifts, but so does the focal point of the narration. At first it was a book about queer awakening, with a little touch of street life. But it gradually shifts to be much more about making it on the streets.

The general story is of a few days in the lives of a group of queer street punks, culminating in a big birthday party that Oreo throws for her girlfriend, Ferret, in an abandoned factory where some of the kids have set up a sort of collective home. The party is busted by the cops, in particular a very nasty copped nicknamed "The King" by the kids - a cop who preys on street kids, rapes them and then trafficks them. One of the kids is shot and killed at the party, and the King is trying to pin it on one of the other kids, but he wants Ferret as a witness. 

I sort of glossed over the events leading up to the party but they are where the real meat of the story is. Many of them involve the gradual blossoming of sexuality and/or gender identity, treated alternately with humour and brutality by the author. Toronto is sort of more of a character than a setting in the book; it lurks as a pleasant, far-off dream at first, and then gradually becomes a hot smelly nightmare for the characters. In one of the early stories, two of the characters yearn to go to the city; in the last story, two others have left it for good. I can't really explain how satisfying this is without spoiling the plot. 

This book made me depressed and angry, but it was good. Really good. The author, a self-identified punk herself, knows these characters inside and out and is so good and so subtle in how she draws them. I feel like it's the kind of book that I would have to re-read, and keep finding more in it each time, but I'm not sure how much emotional energy I would have for such a task. Really, this is not a feel good novel. It will kick you in the gut. But it is really awesome and you should read it.

Four CN Towers out of five.

Doctor Bloom's Story by Don Coles

This book is the story of a doctor who wants to become a writer. Already my guard is up, because books about writers are often irredeemably self-referential. I know they say "write what you know" but that doesn't have to be taken so literally. Pick up any Stephen King novel and chances are it will feature a middle-aged male writer living in New England. Luckily for his readers he throws in a lot of truly disturbing shit to keep it interesting.

The readers of Doctor Bloom are not so lucky. The story centres around a writing workshop that the doctor attends each week, led by Larry, a course, acerbic novelist who is also the doctor's neighbour. Bloom starts seeing Larry's ex-wife, and the three of them grow exceedingly concerned about, and involved in, the life of one of the other writing workshop students, a woman named Sophie, whom they suspect of being in an abusive relationship.

There is potential in the story. Larry and Marianne (the ex-wife) are interesting and well-drawn characters and probably the only compelling points of the story centre on one or the other. Doctor Bloom is awful; I'm not sure if it's because the author has put too much of himself in this character, or if he's trying for someone a little winking-ly pompous but went too far, but regardless, I found his narration almost unbearable. Sophie, too, is not interesting at all as a character. I think it's a cop out to describe a character as having a certain special something that draws people in, and that's essentially what has been done here. As a reader I didn't much care about her at all; certainly I thought her husband was an asshole and certainly I wanted her out of the abusive relationship, but mostly I wanted to actually give a damn about what her whole thing was.

The problem is that the characters in this book spend all their time sitting around talking about a really brutal situation, using literary references to construct theories and engage in clever repartee, which on its own would just be boring, but the fact that the situation they are talking about is a woman getting routinely beaten makes them all seem like absolute assholes.

This book was harder for me to get through than your average book dealing with upsetting subjects like violence against women because in this book everybody knows, and nobody does a god damn thing, and we're still supposed to like these characters. At least I think we are. That was the other problem; I didn't really know what the book was trying to tell me. I wish the author had cut about 50 pages of Dr. Bloom's rambling literary analysis and actually had things happen.

I think it's clear I disliked the book. I liked Toronto in it, there are some great descriptions of jogs in the Don Valley, and the university and Dr. Bloom's neighbourhood are both compellingly detailed. That was the high point for me, however. I can't recommend this book.

Two CN Towers out of five:

Cabbagetown by Hugh Garner

When I picked up this unwieldy doorstop of a book about Toronto during the Great Depression, I almost didn't go through with that - there was nothing about that time that interested me, let alone compelled me to read several hundred pages about it. But I decided to at least give it a chance; I was mostly drawn in by the focus on a specific neighbourhood of Toronto, which isn't something I come across a lot in this project and which I had hoped would give the book a specific and definable flavour.

I am so glad I gave this book a chance. It is the story of three teenagers growing up in Cabbagetown during the Depression, and the three different directions they take in response to their poverty-stricken family lives and undesirable neighbourhood. One young man joins a group of fascists less because of a belief in the ideals and more to escape the stigma of his poor (financially that is) upbringing; one goes completely the opposite way and begins to fight for workers; and the young woman in the story gradually turns to survival sex work as her only marketable skill.

Where the story ends up is not half as compelling as how it gets there. This is a masterful work, a modern Canadian Les Miserables - buried within the story are big, insightful ideas about poverty, class war, social movements, capitalism, and love. This is an important work, and it is really enthralling. Honestly my first thought upon finishing the book was surprise that I had never heard of this author before.

I can't really describe specifically what the book is "about", but I really strongly recommend you read it. The parallels between Cabbagetown in that time and many neighbourhoods in this economic climate are striking, and at one point there is a paragraph about the difference between being "poor" and being "poverty-stricken" that was so breathtakingly accurate I almost highlighted it in the library book.

I don't know what else to say except that you need to read this book. One of the best I've read so far.

Five CN Towers out of five.

The Wars by Timothy Findley

I often complain about reading too many World War II stories, even though some are really profound and well done. I don't really like war stories in general, although there are a few exceptions (the movie Three Kings comes to mind). The Wars is set in WWI, a theme of which I do not feel so completely overwhelmed, but it did fill me with dread nonetheless. Perhaps because I spent some of my formative years growing up in Australia, which means being shown the movie Gallipoli in every class at least once a year.

This is one of the good ones though. Although it was written in the 1970s, it touches on many issues of war and the life of soldiers that we struggle with today: rape and abuse among soldiers; PTSD; the pressure of masculinity; balancing empathy with pragmatism; and the choices we make between following orders and following our hearts.

The novel follows Robert Ross, a Canadian boy growing up in Toronto in the early 1900s. His sister Rowena, whom he loves dearly, is ill, and her death is the impetus for Robert to join the army. The story follows Robert through the experience of the war, and the steps that eventually lead him to crack and make one last attempt at saving his humanity.

This book is very appropriately titled; there are a lot of wars being fought within it. Robert's life is one of struggle, an effective microcosm of the world at that time. The author does not shy away from some very disturbing shit that goes down in the army, and I especially appreciated how realistic the depiction of Robert's reaction was. I think this story is partly about how men are socialized to deal with fear, shame, and trauma by channeling it all into masculine rage and violence. Part of Robert's problem is that he doesn't understand how to deal with the feelings of empathy he has for his fellow humans and for animals; he doesn't know how to safely express his sexual desires; he doesn't know how to speak to people about his feelings, nor does he have that resource available. The book would be a tragedy even if no lives were lost; as it is, the author explicitly tells the reader at one point how many deaths they have witnessed in the narrative.

Another interesting narrative trick is that the story is being told, partially, as a chronicle of a historian figuring out what happened to Robert Ross and why he made the choices he did. The narrative actually switches between viewpoints and includes, if I'm not mistaken, first, second, and third person perspectives. This is done surprisingly well and doesn't make it more confusing.

My only disappointment with the novel is the lack of scenes in Toronto. This isn't really a Toronto book. But other that that it is very good - well-written, well-crafted, completely tragic and depressing, and as perfectly relevant today as ever.

Four CN Towers out of five.