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The Book of Stanley
A riotous new novel from the #1 bestselling author of the hit sensation The Garneau Block.
By all accounts, Stanley Moss is an average man. A retired florist, he lives quietly with his wife, Frieda, in a modest bungalow in Edmonton. Stricken with cancer, Stanley has few wishes for the time he has left, except perhaps for his son to call him back. But on the day of an appointment with the palliative care specialist, Stanley experiences a boom and a flash, and then, a remarkable transformation. He discovers he can read minds. He can fulfill people’s dreams. He has the strength of ten men. And, his illness has vanished. What could this mean? Could it be, as his New Age friend Alok believes, that Stanley’s powers are divine? Is Stanley, a confirmed agnostic, the new Messiah?
With Alok and a reluctant Frieda in tow, Stanley heads to Banff (the most sacred place on earth) to look for answers and find a way to use his new powers for good. He encounters there his disciples — a Vancouver TV executive, a pro hockey player from the Prairies and a teenage girl from suburban Montreal — and together they start The Stan, a new religion, and invite the world to join. When the world shows up, along with the international media and an angry long-dead spiritualist, things take an unexpected turn.
Satirical, fantastical, filled with humour and pointed observation about organized religion in the modern world, The Book of Stanley is a provocative comedy about life, love, and devotion in all its guises.
By all accounts, Stanley Moss is an average man. A retired florist, he lives quietly with his wife, Frieda, in a modest bungalow in Edmonton. Stricken with cancer, Stanley has few wishes for the time he has left, except perhaps for his son to call him back. But on the day of an appointment with the palliative care specialist, Stanley experiences a boom and a flash, and then, a remarkable transformation. He discovers he can read minds. He can fulfill people’s dreams. He has the strength of ten men. And, his illness has vanished. What could this mean? Could it be, as his New Age friend Alok believes, that Stanley’s powers are divine? Is Stanley, a confirmed agnostic, the new Messiah?
With Alok and a reluctant Frieda in tow, Stanley heads to Banff (the most sacred place on earth) to look for answers and find a way to use his new powers for good. He encounters there his disciples — a Vancouver TV executive, a pro hockey player from the Prairies and a teenage girl from suburban Montreal — and together they start The Stan, a new religion, and invite the world to join. When the world shows up, along with the international media and an angry long-dead spiritualist, things take an unexpected turn.
Satirical, fantastical, filled with humour and pointed observation about organized religion in the modern world, The Book of Stanley is a provocative comedy about life, love, and devotion in all its guises.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published August 21, 2007
68 people want to read
About the author
Todd Babiak
13 books77 followersWhen I think no one else is around, I conduct pretend orchestras.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 19, 2019
To be perfectly honest I was quite disappointed by this book. I loved the first half, when the sad Everyman Stanley suddenly develops god-like powers and struggles to understand what it means and what he can, and should do with them. I also loved the local King Edward Park/Avondale neighbourhood references fun- it is always interesting to read fiction set in your own city and neighbourhood. However, I found the second gulf of the book to be directionless and confused as Stanley and his followers attempt to organize a new world religion in Banff, Alberta. I just could not quite figure out the overall point. There were also some passages that I found to be a bit unnecessarily mean-spirited. I. The end, although this novel wasn’t entirely for me, I still think that Babiak has considerable talent and I look forward to experiencing more of his work.
December 31, 2017
Seems fitting that the last book I will read in 2017, on the last day of the year, is all about life and change and choice and challenge. And that it is (partially) set in my hometown.
I was in love with the prose and visceral imagery from early on. The book made my heart squeeze, the characters left me with a grin. Todd Babiuk is an excellent writer.
I loved this book.
I was in love with the prose and visceral imagery from early on. The book made my heart squeeze, the characters left me with a grin. Todd Babiuk is an excellent writer.
I loved this book.
November 5, 2022
Un auteur intelligent et original dont je partage l’amour d’Edmonton et de la langue française qui transparaît dans ses livres.
Un livre surprenant qui porte à réflexion sur le rôle que l’on donne à la religion.
Un livre surprenant qui porte à réflexion sur le rôle que l’on donne à la religion.
March 3, 2017
Weird, goofy, slow, but I liked the local reference.
April 4, 2011
This satirical novel has some interesting lessons for our time: a religion for today has to be intensely personal while a spiritual movement needs marketing, every new belief system will draw its shares of detractors, a religion is more powerful with an absent leader, belief is what is missing in our lives—and my best—everything and everyone is God!
Stanley, a retired florist dying of cancer, is given a chance of immortality (and wisdom) by becoming God. Yes, his cancer goes into remission, he is able to fly, make people levitate, walk underwater, read people’s minds, plant thoughts in others minds, and stop a speeding bullet. He even gets to visit the “otherworld” located under Lake Minnewanka to find out the distress he is causing the souls in Purgatory – God has forgotten them because He is pre-occupied with Stan!
Stanley’s powers attract a motley band of misfits—each of whom are in the midst of a personal crisis at the time—to gather around him in Banff, where the new Messiah explores his new-found powers, some of which even surprise him, like falling off a mountain and landing unhurt! Convinced that they are in the midst of a great power and synchronicity that has brought them to this place, the band members, each in their own way, tries to propagate the new religion—the Stan. One of them, Tanya, a former TV executive from Vancouver, sees a chance of fulfilling her own ambitions and orchestrates a media broadcast of Stanley doing his shtick to the whole world. Masses of seekers arrive from all over to flood tiny Banff and request for personal, mostly material, favours from the “Lord”. Fundamentalists also arrive to get rid of Stanley for rendering their beliefs obsolete. Stanley, the reluctant and pragmatic messiah, in his new found wisdom, sees that this is all going the wrong way and pines for the status quo, even if it is riddled with cancer, and for his wife Frieda who has left him to return to their home in Edmonton because she cannot put up with his new fame. In the end, Stan has to choose between immortality and what is right for him and his fellow mortals. He does so with grace and compassion, even leaving those seeking monetary gain from the Stan to buy into the franchise with its absentee leader.
I found the premise intriguing; Stanley’s inner circle of characters are eccentric and well delineated from each other, but the delivery lags, and the fantastical is sometimes hard to visualize, especially the scenes underwater. The narrative point of view moves among the various members of Stanley’s tribe and this makes the story circle in one place without moving forward. There are occasional prize quotes however, that slip out amidst the sparse narration and punchy dialogue: “No one finds their fortune, except sons of bitches,” “Religion and Happiness are products, like cars,” “American Idol – a symbol of Unironic youth desperate to be famous,” are a few that stuck out for me.
This is a bold book, timely for our media obsessed, attention span challenged times and I applaud the effort. I could not help speculate however that perhaps the author was taking on too much. After all, a religion, even as simple as the Stan, is complex and needs more than just a short sojourn in Banff to digest and comprehend.
Stanley, a retired florist dying of cancer, is given a chance of immortality (and wisdom) by becoming God. Yes, his cancer goes into remission, he is able to fly, make people levitate, walk underwater, read people’s minds, plant thoughts in others minds, and stop a speeding bullet. He even gets to visit the “otherworld” located under Lake Minnewanka to find out the distress he is causing the souls in Purgatory – God has forgotten them because He is pre-occupied with Stan!
Stanley’s powers attract a motley band of misfits—each of whom are in the midst of a personal crisis at the time—to gather around him in Banff, where the new Messiah explores his new-found powers, some of which even surprise him, like falling off a mountain and landing unhurt! Convinced that they are in the midst of a great power and synchronicity that has brought them to this place, the band members, each in their own way, tries to propagate the new religion—the Stan. One of them, Tanya, a former TV executive from Vancouver, sees a chance of fulfilling her own ambitions and orchestrates a media broadcast of Stanley doing his shtick to the whole world. Masses of seekers arrive from all over to flood tiny Banff and request for personal, mostly material, favours from the “Lord”. Fundamentalists also arrive to get rid of Stanley for rendering their beliefs obsolete. Stanley, the reluctant and pragmatic messiah, in his new found wisdom, sees that this is all going the wrong way and pines for the status quo, even if it is riddled with cancer, and for his wife Frieda who has left him to return to their home in Edmonton because she cannot put up with his new fame. In the end, Stan has to choose between immortality and what is right for him and his fellow mortals. He does so with grace and compassion, even leaving those seeking monetary gain from the Stan to buy into the franchise with its absentee leader.
I found the premise intriguing; Stanley’s inner circle of characters are eccentric and well delineated from each other, but the delivery lags, and the fantastical is sometimes hard to visualize, especially the scenes underwater. The narrative point of view moves among the various members of Stanley’s tribe and this makes the story circle in one place without moving forward. There are occasional prize quotes however, that slip out amidst the sparse narration and punchy dialogue: “No one finds their fortune, except sons of bitches,” “Religion and Happiness are products, like cars,” “American Idol – a symbol of Unironic youth desperate to be famous,” are a few that stuck out for me.
This is a bold book, timely for our media obsessed, attention span challenged times and I applaud the effort. I could not help speculate however that perhaps the author was taking on too much. After all, a religion, even as simple as the Stan, is complex and needs more than just a short sojourn in Banff to digest and comprehend.
March 5, 2012
This is the story of an everyman, dying of cancer, who all of a sudden has a change or revelation, and may or may not be God. The story is intended to be humorous, and to raise questions about the role of religion, and how it is perceived. While there are some funny moments (the Wiccan who adopted some rituals from the Freemasons, but they are not like the Wiccans, but are mostly old men in Buicks) a lot of this does not come off as funny as intended - a religion called The Stan, after the principal character, Stanley Moss, should be funny, but actually falls flat. I don't regret reading this but it was not a wonderful new discovery.
As an American I am always intrigued by Canadian literature, or perhaps what might be regarded as a Canadian inferiority complex (probably safe to say that this is a Canadian hangup - Americans have little perception of Canadians by and large) and for this novel it alternately is too congratulatory to Canada ( e.g., Banff is such a national treasure that the national government stepped in to make it a national park and this is the start of the Canadian spirit - unlike what would have happened in the United States where the most powerful individual would have taken it over (which is why, of course, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon are privately owned)) or extremely dismissive - early on Tanya is having new television show ideas pitched to her which she considers "appallingly derivative and sad and, well, Canadian. A loser sandwich covered in loser gravy garnished with fried loser, all in the context of multiculturalism." At some point in the book there are references to religion in America, in this case meaning the continent, and this is the closest to the truth for this novel, that Canada and the US have much the same attitudes towards religion.
Interestingly, one of the lousy television show pitches is about a teenage aboriginal girl at the time that James Cook et al first explored Vancouver Island, who encounters the outsiders, and who speaks through an interior voice as an exasperated teenager - struck me that this was remarkably similar to the key person who knows what is going on and who is speaking through Stanley.
As an American I am always intrigued by Canadian literature, or perhaps what might be regarded as a Canadian inferiority complex (probably safe to say that this is a Canadian hangup - Americans have little perception of Canadians by and large) and for this novel it alternately is too congratulatory to Canada ( e.g., Banff is such a national treasure that the national government stepped in to make it a national park and this is the start of the Canadian spirit - unlike what would have happened in the United States where the most powerful individual would have taken it over (which is why, of course, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon are privately owned)) or extremely dismissive - early on Tanya is having new television show ideas pitched to her which she considers "appallingly derivative and sad and, well, Canadian. A loser sandwich covered in loser gravy garnished with fried loser, all in the context of multiculturalism." At some point in the book there are references to religion in America, in this case meaning the continent, and this is the closest to the truth for this novel, that Canada and the US have much the same attitudes towards religion.
Interestingly, one of the lousy television show pitches is about a teenage aboriginal girl at the time that James Cook et al first explored Vancouver Island, who encounters the outsiders, and who speaks through an interior voice as an exasperated teenager - struck me that this was remarkably similar to the key person who knows what is going on and who is speaking through Stanley.
September 9, 2013
I liked this book, but I know it won’t be for everyone. To be honest, it almost wasn’t for me.
The Book of Stanley is well written, and there’s a pretty interesting idea behind the plot. But it didn’t pull me in quite as much as I would have liked it to, or as much as I originally expected it to. What kept me reading were the characters. Each one was very well developed, and I found that I was able to connect with almost all of them on some level.
I found that a big aspect of the book was human nature, and how people would react when faced with a person who has divine powers – in this case, Stanley Moss. Each of the main characters reacted in what I thought was a very realistic way; some easily accepted and embraced what was happening – including a couple who went a little over the top with it – and some refused to believe what was happening was real, or else believed it but didn’t think it should change anything.
Overall, I liked most of the characters – Maha and Kal in particular. But I have to admit, I really didn’t like Tanya. At first, I liked her about as much as I liked the other characters; after all, they were all similar in the sense that they were looking for something to make their lives a bit better, and that’s something I can connect with. But, the more I got to know Tanya, the less I liked her, largely because of the personality traits and actions that differentiated her from the others.
But, regardless of my dislike for Tanya, I found that the characters were the reason why I wanted to finish this book. I had connected with them, and I wanted to know what ended up happening to them – not just what ended up happening with the plot.
The Book of Stanley is well written, and there’s a pretty interesting idea behind the plot. But it didn’t pull me in quite as much as I would have liked it to, or as much as I originally expected it to. What kept me reading were the characters. Each one was very well developed, and I found that I was able to connect with almost all of them on some level.
I found that a big aspect of the book was human nature, and how people would react when faced with a person who has divine powers – in this case, Stanley Moss. Each of the main characters reacted in what I thought was a very realistic way; some easily accepted and embraced what was happening – including a couple who went a little over the top with it – and some refused to believe what was happening was real, or else believed it but didn’t think it should change anything.
Overall, I liked most of the characters – Maha and Kal in particular. But I have to admit, I really didn’t like Tanya. At first, I liked her about as much as I liked the other characters; after all, they were all similar in the sense that they were looking for something to make their lives a bit better, and that’s something I can connect with. But, the more I got to know Tanya, the less I liked her, largely because of the personality traits and actions that differentiated her from the others.
But, regardless of my dislike for Tanya, I found that the characters were the reason why I wanted to finish this book. I had connected with them, and I wanted to know what ended up happening to them – not just what ended up happening with the plot.
December 29, 2014
I finished this book awhile ago (but forgot I had a Goodreads account, and didn't update until now). Still, the story stuck with me because it was a very realistic depiction of the way religion can play out in people's lives. While I don't remember the characters' names, I recall a girl who was looking for God because she thought it would make her selfish, one of those obnoxiously head-in-the-clouds new age stereotypes who completely missed the point, and somebody who wanted to exploit the divine miracles to make a profit. There was also the book's title character, Stanley, upon whom God bestows divine powers, and who tries to use them for good but messes up every time, mostly because people don't really want the deliverance they claim to seek.
It was a good book, but thinking about it too much made me feel sad for how often we humans fall short.
It was a good book, but thinking about it too much made me feel sad for how often we humans fall short.
December 14, 2015
Interesting concept, a tad anti-climatic. I wish a more in-depth exploration of Svarga had transpired. Bit of a missed opportunity there.
I appreciate that the author stayed true to the character's personalities and didn't cave to conventional norms.
The writing was fluid and it paced the story well. For me, the most interesting character in the book was Tanya. The embodiment of the loss of spirituality in millenials.
7.5/10
I appreciate that the author stayed true to the character's personalities and didn't cave to conventional norms.
The writing was fluid and it paced the story well. For me, the most interesting character in the book was Tanya. The embodiment of the loss of spirituality in millenials.
7.5/10
August 9, 2009
This was fairly disappointing. I thought The Garneau Block was brilliant, albeit a bit uneven, social satire, so I had high hopes for this novel. It had its moments, but I just couldn't relate to the characters, the satire felt blunted, the story seemed incoherent in places. Maybe if I were more religiously inclined I would have appreciated the satire more?
July 31, 2010
This book had a great premise, but I kept waiting for something to happen, and very little did. I never felt close to any of the characters, so in the end I wasn't emotionally invested in any of their fates. To sum up in a word: anti-climactic.
April 26, 2016
What made this a 5-star book was the concept of being ordinary and having something extraordinary and life changing happen to you. What would you do? How would you cope? Stanley is a salt-of-the-earth type guy and his humbleness shines through in Babiaks writing.
May 14, 2014
I more than liked it..so 3½ stars!!
Todd Babiak must be such an entertaining person to hear at an author reading. It would be great if he came to our library. (going to work on that)
Thankx for the book TB
Todd Babiak must be such an entertaining person to hear at an author reading. It would be great if he came to our library. (going to work on that)
Thankx for the book TB
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October 18, 2009Advanced Reader's Copy
July 26, 2012
good times. funny. lighthearted.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews