I liked Timothy Taylor's Stanley Park, but it is definitely not a fast paced and suspenseful action or adventure filled novel. I prefer faster paced stories myself but it was a page-turner for, which is rare for assigned reading. (George Orwell's 1984 in English 12 many years ago was the last book I could not put down once I started, as part of assigned reading) Although to be fair, I was likely at that level of interest because it is a local setting. The story resides in a place that I rarely have time to go to, and rarely take the time to think about: Stanley Park and parts of the downtown area.
Our protagonist is a chef who through his cooking, is "trying to remind people of something. Of what the soil under their feet has to offer. Of a time when they would have known only the food that their own soil could offer.'" (Taylor 23) Jeremy's initial belief in the story was that "food is a language," (Taylor 60), but we see a large change in character as food becomes "a performance about memory, a tribute to the way things once were" (Taylor 353) by the end of the novel. Jeremy's character development was entwined with the repair of his relationship with his father and his understanding of place. I liked the spiderweb of characters in the novel, the Professor, Jules and Caruzo possibly being my favourites of them all. I enjoyed Jeremy's strained father and son relationship with the Professor, Jeremy's short comings with money and debt leading to his 'friendship' with Dante, and his sous chef and chef relationship that maybe went beyond friendship with Jules. I loved the closure at the end, and the novel inspired a desire to take a long walk through Stanley Park to imagine Jeremy, the Professor, Caruzo or Siwash in the woods somewhere.
I am disappointed of course, to find that the Monkey's Paw Bistro was not a real restaurant because I'd liked to have visit. Perhaps the Food Caboose is a restaurant that actually exists.
