Cabbagetown Diary: A Documentary

ISBN-13: 9781554588305 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 228 str.

Juan Butler

Opis

Robert Fulford called it a remarkable glimpse of the underbelly of Toronto, but the reviews that greeted the publication of "Cabbagetown Diary" in 1970 were decidedly mixed. The novel s rowdy concoction of grit and violence and rooming-house sleaze had a strongly polarizing effect on its readers. Many admired the frankness of Butler s depiction of a sordid environment, and others deplored the obscenity of the language and the dangerous and careless ways in which his characters behave, bent as they are on downward self-transcendence. But "Cabbagetown Diary" was undeniably a promising debut by a young writer whose brash tone and pungent subject matter were unique in Canadian writing at that time.

The novel takes the form of a diary written by a disaffected young Toronto bartender, Michael, over the course of his four-month liaison with Terry, a naive teenager who is new to the city. Michael introduces her to his friends and his inner-city haunts, to drink and drugs, and to the nihilist politics espoused by some in his circle. With hard-bitten cynicism and flashes of dark humour, Michael relates the vicissitudes of their summer together.

This reissue of "Cabbagetown Diary" includes a biographical sketch by Charles Butler and an afterword by Tamas Dobozy. "