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...