Passing Through

by David Penhale

Toronto is not a place Daniel Foster wants to be for very long. If not for his daughter Mary being in financial trouble, he would not be here at all. What he really wants is to be back in the Arabian Peninsula or, better yet, on a plane leading to retirement in Thailand. But when the bank that holds his million-dollar savings crashes, he realizes he will be stuck in Toronto much longer than he expected. Forced to move in with Mary and her daughter Shawna, Foster must relearn everything he thought he knew: job skills, parenting, even how to love again. Passing Through is a funny and thought-provoking look at what it takes to keep going after losing everything.

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 2011

Reviews

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the major aspects of the human condition is how humans deal with change. We set ourselves with certain patterns in our lives and then something ‘out of the blue’ happens and we must somehow adjust to that change. It can be quite a shock to the system. That is what happens to the main character of David Penhale’s novel Passing Through and his journey makes for an enlightening read.

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[Colin Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet little gem that unexpectedly stuck with me long after I read it in 2012. Perhaps because Foster's journey from self-delusion to a fuller engagement with the world is so secretly terrifying.

[Backwater Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sudden redundancy of Penhale's protagonist, Daniel Foster, is a metaphor for the modern world. A man who rode the wave of shady banking and investments finds himself abandoned and bereft by the corporate culture which originally "fostered" him. The writing is wry and the characters unsentimental in this quest for relevance and reinvention.

[HadiDee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gentle book about a man rediscovering what family means. A few slow patches but I really enjoyed the Grandpa hardware store and the relationship between Foster and Shawna.

[Ellen Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a few of the metaphors a bit stretched, but other than that it was an enjoyable and compelling read.