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Cabbagetown
Toronto's Cabbagetown in the Depression...North America's largest Anglo-Saxon slum. Ken Tilling leaves school to face the bleak prospects of the dirty thirties-where do you go, what do you do, how do you make a life for yourself when all the world offers in unemployment, poverty and uncertainty? "As a social document, Cabbagetown is as important and revealing as either The Tin Flute or The Grapes of Wrath. Stern realism has also projected upon the pages of a whole gallery of types, lifelike and convincing. He is well fitted to hold the mirror up to human nature." Globe and Mail. Cabbagetown was first published in an abbreviated paperback edition in 1950 and was published in its entirety in 1968. This, the first quality paperback edition, contains the full unexpurgated text of Cabbagetown.
415 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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441 people want to read
About the author
Hugh Garner
40 books2 followersHugh Garner was a Canadian novelist.
Born in England, Garner came to Canada in 1919 with his parents and was raised in Toronto. During the Great Depression, he rode the rails in both Canada and the United States and then joined the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II he served in the Canadian navy. Following the war, Garner concentrated on his writing. He published his first novel, Storm Below, in 1949. Garner's most famous novel, Cabbagetown, depicted life in the Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown, then Canada's most famous slum, during the Depression.
Garner's background (poor, urban, Protestant) is rare for a Canadian writer of his time. It is nevertheless, the foundation for his writing. His theme is working-class Ontario; the realistic novel his preferred genre.
In 1963, Garner won the Governor General's Award for his collection of short stories entitled Hugh Garner's Best Stories. Garner struggled much of his life with alcoholism, and died in 1979 of alcohol-related illness. A housing cooperative in Cabbagetown is named in his memory.
Born in England, Garner came to Canada in 1919 with his parents and was raised in Toronto. During the Great Depression, he rode the rails in both Canada and the United States and then joined the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II he served in the Canadian navy. Following the war, Garner concentrated on his writing. He published his first novel, Storm Below, in 1949. Garner's most famous novel, Cabbagetown, depicted life in the Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown, then Canada's most famous slum, during the Depression.
Garner's background (poor, urban, Protestant) is rare for a Canadian writer of his time. It is nevertheless, the foundation for his writing. His theme is working-class Ontario; the realistic novel his preferred genre.
In 1963, Garner won the Governor General's Award for his collection of short stories entitled Hugh Garner's Best Stories. Garner struggled much of his life with alcoholism, and died in 1979 of alcohol-related illness. A housing cooperative in Cabbagetown is named in his memory.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
September 27, 2011
Many facets of this book are just wonderful -- and I'm so glad I read it -- but man, is it depressing! Perhaps it is redundant to state that a book about a Toronto slum during the Depression is "depressing". As such, it is a fantastic representation of the era and the struggles of the time. My continued hope that things would turn around for the protagonists proved fruitless; however, I couldn't put the book down.
I loved experiencing all the locales I frequent on a daily basis in a historical setting: Queen's Park, Bloor St, the ROM, University Ave, Allan Gardens to name a few. Despite it being fiction, I found myself connecting to the city, the era, the Depression. As a result, I feel much closer to Toronto.
I loved experiencing all the locales I frequent on a daily basis in a historical setting: Queen's Park, Bloor St, the ROM, University Ave, Allan Gardens to name a few. Despite it being fiction, I found myself connecting to the city, the era, the Depression. As a result, I feel much closer to Toronto.
May 5, 2025
This is just such a capital B Book - I can name not much remarkable from it other than its (admittedly neat) references to Toronto streets and landmarks. Given to me by my cutie-pie Cabbagetown landlords and was worth reading for them!!
September 20, 2010
One of my favourite Canadian authors, and he knows whereof he speaks. Fiction but partly autobiographical. Cabbagetown was a Toronto slum during the depression. Garner grew up there, and spent time riding the rails across both Canada and the US, serving in the Spanish Civil War, and serving in a Canadian Navy Corvette escorting convoys across the Atlantic during WWII before becoming an author so successful he could support himself by writing (a real feat for a Canadian in the 1950's). I hadn't read this in about 40 years, so came to it fresh and enjoyed it more than before.
June 1, 2021
A powerful book, chronicling the desperate times of poverty and despair during the "Dirty Thirties" Depression in Canada. It is based on the original Cabbagetown in Toronto, a slum area in the east-central part of the city, bounded by Parliament St on the west, Gerrard St on the north, the Don River on the east and Queen St on the south.
The stories and the characters are vividly portrayed, and there is good reason to believe they are accurately drawn, as the author Hugh Garner, grew up in Cabbagetown during that time, and had personal experience of most of the travels and travails of Ken Tilling, the main protagonist.
Somewhat reminiscent of 'The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz', Cabbagetown is well worthwhile for anyone wishing to understand a little more of the history of Canada, and for anyone who enjoys a good read !
The stories and the characters are vividly portrayed, and there is good reason to believe they are accurately drawn, as the author Hugh Garner, grew up in Cabbagetown during that time, and had personal experience of most of the travels and travails of Ken Tilling, the main protagonist.
Somewhat reminiscent of 'The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz', Cabbagetown is well worthwhile for anyone wishing to understand a little more of the history of Canada, and for anyone who enjoys a good read !
September 4, 2011
Unbelievably, I actually truly enjoyed this book. Instead of being a boring historical read, I was actually caught up in the lives of a handful of people living in Cabbagetown at the time of the depression.
October 24, 2011
Heart touching story of Cabbagetown, Toronto, during the depression. Shows the lives of a group of friends as they deal with their world day to day.
Always thought it would make a great Sullivan movie or miniseries.
I've re-read it a dozen times over the years. Highly recommend it.
Always thought it would make a great Sullivan movie or miniseries.
I've re-read it a dozen times over the years. Highly recommend it.
May 28, 2012
Ending felt a bit off... the beginning and middle were what felt like real and raw stories of coming of age in the Depression.
August 16, 2018
Hugh Garner’s work has received mixed reviews, some reviewers commenting that his writing too often lacks literary merit, and that the characterization in his writing is sometimes inconsistent or not credible. His work has been praised as being realistic, sometime brutally so, at a time (during the middle third of the twentieth century) when writing in Canada shied away from topics that were considered socially off limits. Garner won the Governor General’s Award for fiction in 1963, so he must not have been doing everything wrong.
Based on just a reading of “Cabbagetown”, considered by many to be his best work, it is clear enough to me that Garner had important and interesting things to say, and that he said them in a way that was engaging and memorable. But living, as I do, not far from both Cabbagetown and Corktown, which are districts in central Toronto, I was far more interested in the picture Garner painted of these regions during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Garner (born in England in 1913) was raised in Cabbagetown from 1919 onwards. At that time, Cabbagetown was one of the poorer parts of Toronto, and was described at least once as the largest Anglo-Saxon Protestant slum in North America. What was most interesting to me was the impressions of Cabbagetown during those years, given by someone who had been a resident, and the descriptions of streets, landmarks, activities, and the degrading, debilitating grind of during and even before the Depression.
Cabbagetown and Corktown today are bijou areas. Cabbagetown, in fact, boasts one of the largest and best preserved stocks of Victorian buildings in Canada or the United States. Comparing pictures of houses in Cabbagetown during the first two decades of the twentieth century, to those that are there today, is astonishing in at least two regards: first, the basic structures are the same, but, second, the area today exudes affluence. It is a matter of some pride to be able to say today that one lives in Cabbagetown. By contrast, in the book “Cabbagetown”, there is a repeated statement of the sentiment, with great feelings of frustration, shame, and disgust, that one is doomed by fate to live in Cabbagetown.
There are many instances where the text in Cabbagetown forces one to imagine small aspects of Cabbagetown life. People were always scrounging anything they could just to survive, to deal with the cold of winter or the heat of summer, and at best to be modestly comfortable. Diet was generally monotonous and poor. The loss of regular employment could be devastating. Even regular employment could be degrading because of the types of work available, the hours, and the paltry pay. There is one instance in “Cabbagetown” where a discussion is presented of people making regular visits to the slag heaps produced by the Consumer’s Gas and other works that generated town gas from coal. Pickings of coke from these slag heaps provided the only source of heat for cooking and meagre comfort that was available to some families.
But perhaps most interesting for me, and I suspect for others who today live near Cabbagetown and Corktown, are the many references to streets, structures and buildings (many still present, but many also demolished), and the houses of the area, but all seen looking back a century. They are reminders of the truly radical changes that have taken place over that time.
Based on just a reading of “Cabbagetown”, considered by many to be his best work, it is clear enough to me that Garner had important and interesting things to say, and that he said them in a way that was engaging and memorable. But living, as I do, not far from both Cabbagetown and Corktown, which are districts in central Toronto, I was far more interested in the picture Garner painted of these regions during the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Garner (born in England in 1913) was raised in Cabbagetown from 1919 onwards. At that time, Cabbagetown was one of the poorer parts of Toronto, and was described at least once as the largest Anglo-Saxon Protestant slum in North America. What was most interesting to me was the impressions of Cabbagetown during those years, given by someone who had been a resident, and the descriptions of streets, landmarks, activities, and the degrading, debilitating grind of during and even before the Depression.
Cabbagetown and Corktown today are bijou areas. Cabbagetown, in fact, boasts one of the largest and best preserved stocks of Victorian buildings in Canada or the United States. Comparing pictures of houses in Cabbagetown during the first two decades of the twentieth century, to those that are there today, is astonishing in at least two regards: first, the basic structures are the same, but, second, the area today exudes affluence. It is a matter of some pride to be able to say today that one lives in Cabbagetown. By contrast, in the book “Cabbagetown”, there is a repeated statement of the sentiment, with great feelings of frustration, shame, and disgust, that one is doomed by fate to live in Cabbagetown.
There are many instances where the text in Cabbagetown forces one to imagine small aspects of Cabbagetown life. People were always scrounging anything they could just to survive, to deal with the cold of winter or the heat of summer, and at best to be modestly comfortable. Diet was generally monotonous and poor. The loss of regular employment could be devastating. Even regular employment could be degrading because of the types of work available, the hours, and the paltry pay. There is one instance in “Cabbagetown” where a discussion is presented of people making regular visits to the slag heaps produced by the Consumer’s Gas and other works that generated town gas from coal. Pickings of coke from these slag heaps provided the only source of heat for cooking and meagre comfort that was available to some families.
But perhaps most interesting for me, and I suspect for others who today live near Cabbagetown and Corktown, are the many references to streets, structures and buildings (many still present, but many also demolished), and the houses of the area, but all seen looking back a century. They are reminders of the truly radical changes that have taken place over that time.
September 25, 2022
A frustrating book is about the best description of this book. There are parts of brilliance but there are other parts that drag or boarder on explotive.
The book should be viewed a tragedy for most of its characters in a desperate struggle against both their situation and their faults.
Then stuck in the middle of this tragedy is the coming of age story of Ken. At some points this contrast is poetic and other times it is infuriating in the tonal shifting.
I've give 5 stars because it is thought provoking and a worth while read.
Minor issues: not to be puritan but the overtime sex and sexualizationwas understandable for much of the novel (about young men) but was gratuitous to distraction.
Exploitive: I can do with tragedy and horrible things occurring but Myrtle's story especially seemed to revel in the fall. Like a story of a cuckold
Ken's affair with Dorothy were gross but maybe that's more just my personal opinion.
I like to believe that Ken eventually turns into Orwell (Homage to Catalonia) spiritly.
Of all the parts the last part (exodus) is the best.
The book should be viewed a tragedy for most of its characters in a desperate struggle against both their situation and their faults.
Then stuck in the middle of this tragedy is the coming of age story of Ken. At some points this contrast is poetic and other times it is infuriating in the tonal shifting.
I've give 5 stars because it is thought provoking and a worth while read.
Minor issues: not to be puritan but the overtime sex and sexualizationwas understandable for much of the novel (about young men) but was gratuitous to distraction.
Exploitive: I can do with tragedy and horrible things occurring but Myrtle's story especially seemed to revel in the fall. Like a story of a cuckold
Ken's affair with Dorothy were gross but maybe that's more just my personal opinion.
I like to believe that Ken eventually turns into Orwell (Homage to Catalonia) spiritly.
Of all the parts the last part (exodus) is the best.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2025
This novel follows the life of Ken Tilling from 1929 to 1932. Graduating high school at the age of 16, he is not sure what he intends to do, but he is certain there are many junior job opportunities available to him. Living in Cabbagetown at the start of the depression, he has no idea that his life will be totally unlike anything he imagined.
The depiction of Toronto and the different neighborhoods and the poverty and frustrations of the common people are presented realistically, which make the book slightly depression for some readers. There are no highlights in the book that will stand out in the readers' minds.
People who like historical fiction, because they want to be immersed in the surroundings and realism of the time period presented in the novel will enjoy this book. People who want to be entertained by complicated plots and unforgettable characters may be disappointed and depressed by this book.
The depiction of Toronto and the different neighborhoods and the poverty and frustrations of the common people are presented realistically, which make the book slightly depression for some readers. There are no highlights in the book that will stand out in the readers' minds.
People who like historical fiction, because they want to be immersed in the surroundings and realism of the time period presented in the novel will enjoy this book. People who want to be entertained by complicated plots and unforgettable characters may be disappointed and depressed by this book.
February 26, 2018
I picked this book up to research life in early 20th Century Canada and read their linguistic patterns, but I found myself in the midst of a great book. Although some have described this book as Canada's Grapes of Wrath, the story has its own merits. I found myself liking Garner's characters so much, that I was flipping the pages to find out what happened to them. I associated with the search for some answers that the main character, Ken Tilling, was doing in this story, and the relevance of the tale to our modern day world was chilling at times. I am looking forward to reading some more Hugh Garner in the future!
December 14, 2022
I really enjoyed Cabbagetown especially because i live in Toronto and it was cool to read where the characters were in the book and know exactly where everything is. My only note is that the chapters with Theodore and Billy felt s little slow/boring. But the other chapters with Ken, Myrla, Bob, etc were so good. I loved the complex relationship between Ken and Myrla it was a perfect example right person wrong time. Cabbagetown is a great book all in all and i had a good time reading it and following Ken’s journey into adulthood and surviving the Depression.
March 11, 2023
I first read this book when I was working on my social work degree at University, and reading it 17 odd years later, it didn't disappoint.
This book is so raw and "real" that it is painful to read in parts. It sheds light on the largely Anglo-Saxon slum, Cabbagetown, in Toronto, Ontario, during the Great Depression. It challenges the tired stereotype about white Anglo-Saxons and shows poverty in all of its stark reality.
It shows how ground-down poverty can lead people down paths they never thought possible, like the beautiful Myrla Patson who ends up entrenched in the sex trade.
Read it!
This book is so raw and "real" that it is painful to read in parts. It sheds light on the largely Anglo-Saxon slum, Cabbagetown, in Toronto, Ontario, during the Great Depression. It challenges the tired stereotype about white Anglo-Saxons and shows poverty in all of its stark reality.
It shows how ground-down poverty can lead people down paths they never thought possible, like the beautiful Myrla Patson who ends up entrenched in the sex trade.
Read it!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2024
Cabbagetown is a contender for my favorite book of all time. As a Canadian, it was very revealing about class and race disputes of the past and continues to be relevant today. I hadn't realized that many Canadians felt ill toward Jewish immigrants or that there were such strong factions championing communism during those years. But aside from that, the book is mostly a poignant and sadly real commentary on the struggle to survive hard times, the wild and changing winds of fate, and the evanescence of youth and life.
January 20, 2022
I used to live in the neighbourhood in which this story takes place and I suspect that was one of the reasons I found this book so riveting. I also studied history in school, and have always found Toronto history specifically fascinating, so this glimpse into the past to see how others used to live and make their way in the same community that I also lived in was a delight. The language is so quirky and the relationships are eye-opening.
July 9, 2025
If you live in Toronto, reading about the City during this time is interesting.
I was also interested in what it was like to live in Canada during the Depression as everything I've seen in tv/movies or read in books is US based.
The story itself was kinda like watching Coronation Street. You get a glimpse of the lives of different characters over time but there is no real central plot.
It was worth reading.
I was also interested in what it was like to live in Canada during the Depression as everything I've seen in tv/movies or read in books is US based.
The story itself was kinda like watching Coronation Street. You get a glimpse of the lives of different characters over time but there is no real central plot.
It was worth reading.
November 2, 2024
I read this in high school, where, at one point they wanted it censored and Garner himself wrote a letter to our class decrying this. This novel was a revelation to me as a teenager. Magnificent in its prose and poignant in the story. This is history and love and pain. I will never forget how it made me feel.
June 16, 2019
My review is biased insofar as it deals with a part of Toronto that I have had a long-standing relationship with - and, thus I am charmed by its nostalgia and emotional proximity to my own personal experiences.
February 16, 2023
Brilliant epic about those that were most affected during the times of the depression. Sorrowful and hopeful. Somehow I could relate to Ken Tilling very well!
Steinbeck-esque who is one of my all-time favorite authors. Bravo!
Steinbeck-esque who is one of my all-time favorite authors. Bravo!
July 18, 2019
Mildly entertaining. Good summer beach read. Interesting because of Toronto setting.
July 13, 2021
This was one of the saddest 'missed-love' opportunities I've read. Myrla was a great character, and so were Ken and the boys. I will certainly be re-reading this in a few years.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2021
I loved Ken and Myrla’s storylines, however, when it came to Ken’s friend Theodore East and his political exploits - I was bored to tears!
July 14, 2025
3.5 stars
August 31, 2025
Was a really good read especially for those who love in Cabbagetown . A great pice of Toronto history, nice character development. Really enjoyed it
October 15, 2015
A rambling story of the Depression era in a low income part of Toronto, Cabbagetown, a neighbourhood that is only now finding its feet in the renaissance of mega construction and renovation going on in Canada’s largest city.
I was drawn to this story as I am an occasional resident of the Old Cabbagetown described in this novel, an area that became a bigger eyesore when it turned into Regent Park in the 1950’s, and has only now turned the corner thanks to a huge revitalization project, while the moniker of Cabbagetown has been conferred on the ritzier part north of the original cabbage patch.
The central character in this story is Cabbagetown, the neighbourhood the author grew up in and which he captures vividly with its sights, smells, conflicts, grinding poverty and jobless hopelessness in the period between 1929 and 1937. The denizens of this unhappy time and place are broken down into those who fall prey to the Depression and those who ride it and escape. Ken Tilling, a proxy for the author himself, is one who lives by his own rules, rebelling against bosses, grabbing odd jobs, stealing, riding the rails all over North America to find work, a man no better or worse off from when we are introduced to him to when we leave him, but a survivor nonetheless. His love, Myrla, is the one with higher aspirations, who has them dashed by older men she pursues for money, and who ends up a prostitute. There is the bookish Theodor, who becomes a fascist (Hitler was popular at the time) and escapes his ghetto by joining powerful capitalist friends, and marrying rich. And there is Ken’s mother Mabel who sinks into alcoholism, McIsaac the defiant thief, and Billy Addington trapped in a chocolate factory, all who succumb to the grind of the collapsing economy; the Depression creeps in like a fog, and very soon there is no light at the end of any tunnel. Winners and Losers, Cabbagetown produces them all.
The prejudices of this society are comical. Cabbagetowners considered foreigners dirty, when in fact they were the dirt-poor English, Scottish and Irish who lived on welfare and were considered the dirtiest of all! And despite being jobless for months on end, they have the temerity to smoke and gamble on their welfare money, and cheat by not reporting income when they get the odd casual, temporary job. Anti-Semitism was rife in the Toronto of the 1930’s because the Jews (the earliest “foreigners”) controlled many business enterprises by this time. Words like “sheeney” and “kike” are bandied around along with other vernacular words such as “scissorbills,” “mossbacks,” “hunkies,” and “dogans.”
With the absence of the Don Valley Parkway that now severs Cabbagetown from Broadview, the large park and pedestrian bridge across the Don River that bound these two neighbourhoods become the hangouts for the jobless, the lovers, and the voyeurs with dogs (called Spotters). There is even a scene in the now defunct Don Jail on the top of the hill, but it was so perfunctory, that I wondered whether the author had ever been inside.
I was enjoying this brooding, slow paced but intense human drama until Ken decides that he needs to up and leave to fight in the Spanish Civil War, partly to escape the misery of Cabbagetown and partly to fight against Capitalism and all its ills that had brought such misery to his community. The Communist Party sponsors disenfranchised recruits like him from all over the world and sends them to Spain to enlist with the left-leaning Republicans against Franco’s fascist Nationalists. I guess this digression was needed to record the author’s own escape to Spain to fight in this war, but it left me conflicted for we know how that war ended: Franco won and ruled Spain for another 36 years, so Ken, for all his bravado, ended up on the wrong side of history and no better off than Mabel and his buddies McIsaac and Billy. He probably just died with his boots on - but we never find out, for this section is a rushed addition to the novel, an open-ended afterthought.
This conclusion, that a war of rebellion is the only solution to the Depression (well, WWII certainly proved that) and that political causes such as Communism sponsor recruits to sacrifice their lives, is eerily reminiscent today as ISIS recruits candidates from all over the world to go to the Middle East to fight for its cause. In the last 100 years we don’t seem to have grown much! Somehow I wished Garner had stayed true to the Cabbagetowners prejudice and not strayed to foreign parts in this novel, and instead found whatever redemption there was to be had at home.
I was drawn to this story as I am an occasional resident of the Old Cabbagetown described in this novel, an area that became a bigger eyesore when it turned into Regent Park in the 1950’s, and has only now turned the corner thanks to a huge revitalization project, while the moniker of Cabbagetown has been conferred on the ritzier part north of the original cabbage patch.
The central character in this story is Cabbagetown, the neighbourhood the author grew up in and which he captures vividly with its sights, smells, conflicts, grinding poverty and jobless hopelessness in the period between 1929 and 1937. The denizens of this unhappy time and place are broken down into those who fall prey to the Depression and those who ride it and escape. Ken Tilling, a proxy for the author himself, is one who lives by his own rules, rebelling against bosses, grabbing odd jobs, stealing, riding the rails all over North America to find work, a man no better or worse off from when we are introduced to him to when we leave him, but a survivor nonetheless. His love, Myrla, is the one with higher aspirations, who has them dashed by older men she pursues for money, and who ends up a prostitute. There is the bookish Theodor, who becomes a fascist (Hitler was popular at the time) and escapes his ghetto by joining powerful capitalist friends, and marrying rich. And there is Ken’s mother Mabel who sinks into alcoholism, McIsaac the defiant thief, and Billy Addington trapped in a chocolate factory, all who succumb to the grind of the collapsing economy; the Depression creeps in like a fog, and very soon there is no light at the end of any tunnel. Winners and Losers, Cabbagetown produces them all.
The prejudices of this society are comical. Cabbagetowners considered foreigners dirty, when in fact they were the dirt-poor English, Scottish and Irish who lived on welfare and were considered the dirtiest of all! And despite being jobless for months on end, they have the temerity to smoke and gamble on their welfare money, and cheat by not reporting income when they get the odd casual, temporary job. Anti-Semitism was rife in the Toronto of the 1930’s because the Jews (the earliest “foreigners”) controlled many business enterprises by this time. Words like “sheeney” and “kike” are bandied around along with other vernacular words such as “scissorbills,” “mossbacks,” “hunkies,” and “dogans.”
With the absence of the Don Valley Parkway that now severs Cabbagetown from Broadview, the large park and pedestrian bridge across the Don River that bound these two neighbourhoods become the hangouts for the jobless, the lovers, and the voyeurs with dogs (called Spotters). There is even a scene in the now defunct Don Jail on the top of the hill, but it was so perfunctory, that I wondered whether the author had ever been inside.
I was enjoying this brooding, slow paced but intense human drama until Ken decides that he needs to up and leave to fight in the Spanish Civil War, partly to escape the misery of Cabbagetown and partly to fight against Capitalism and all its ills that had brought such misery to his community. The Communist Party sponsors disenfranchised recruits like him from all over the world and sends them to Spain to enlist with the left-leaning Republicans against Franco’s fascist Nationalists. I guess this digression was needed to record the author’s own escape to Spain to fight in this war, but it left me conflicted for we know how that war ended: Franco won and ruled Spain for another 36 years, so Ken, for all his bravado, ended up on the wrong side of history and no better off than Mabel and his buddies McIsaac and Billy. He probably just died with his boots on - but we never find out, for this section is a rushed addition to the novel, an open-ended afterthought.
This conclusion, that a war of rebellion is the only solution to the Depression (well, WWII certainly proved that) and that political causes such as Communism sponsor recruits to sacrifice their lives, is eerily reminiscent today as ISIS recruits candidates from all over the world to go to the Middle East to fight for its cause. In the last 100 years we don’t seem to have grown much! Somehow I wished Garner had stayed true to the Cabbagetowners prejudice and not strayed to foreign parts in this novel, and instead found whatever redemption there was to be had at home.
April 13, 2015
"With the spring Cabbagetown came outdoors again, and the streets were alive in the evenings with the noise of children. The little girls began their skipping, afraid as yet to do Double Dutches or Salt, Vinegar, Peppers, content to start again with the old single slow-moving ropes."
So begins the book. The story is written well, if very plainly. The cover suggests this to be Canada's version of The Grapes of Wrath, and it's not, but I found it similar to Brooklyn. A simply told story that adds layers as it goes and builds into a simply told book.
There's a lot of Toronto of old in here and it's worth while for anyone with interest in the city, from the milkman driving his horse to the factories along the Don River the book is a great history of the city.
Some have called the book depressing and other than a few specific events I would disagree. My great-grandmother was 13th of 14 children and didn't get store bought toys when she was growing up but it didn't lead to a necessarily unhappy life and there are many instances of people pulling through and being stronger in this book, mostly in the life of the narrator himself.
The book goes off track at the very end with too much about the politics of the time and the war in Spain, and ends quite abruptly. Still a great journey through time and a book I'd recommend.
So begins the book. The story is written well, if very plainly. The cover suggests this to be Canada's version of The Grapes of Wrath, and it's not, but I found it similar to Brooklyn. A simply told story that adds layers as it goes and builds into a simply told book.
There's a lot of Toronto of old in here and it's worth while for anyone with interest in the city, from the milkman driving his horse to the factories along the Don River the book is a great history of the city.
Some have called the book depressing and other than a few specific events I would disagree. My great-grandmother was 13th of 14 children and didn't get store bought toys when she was growing up but it didn't lead to a necessarily unhappy life and there are many instances of people pulling through and being stronger in this book, mostly in the life of the narrator himself.
The book goes off track at the very end with too much about the politics of the time and the war in Spain, and ends quite abruptly. Still a great journey through time and a book I'd recommend.
October 14, 2009
Good Read about that section of Toronto during the Depression. My Mom & Dad grew up, one in Cabbagetown and one in the better parts. It reminds me of some of the stories. Everyone should know how things were in the Depression, It can come again.
November 30, 2014
I enjoyed this book - it helps that I live in Toronto, where it's set. The writing wasn't great, but you do care about the characters and it's very evocative of the period that it's set in. Worth a read, especially if you know Toronto.
February 29, 2016
Interesting to read about the depression.
April 28, 2016
Great insight into a beautiful neighborhood in Toronto that wasn't always as desirous as it is today.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews