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Union Station: Love, Madness, Sex and Survival on the Streets of the New Toronto
The critically acclaimed author of The Closer We Are to Dying now turns his penetrating gaze to the big city he calls home.
Toronto is the city that Canadians love to hate. But they don’t know this city, says Joe Fiorito. Even Torontonians don’t really know this city because it changes every day. It’s not a finished thing, it’s a work in progress. It’s New York in 1900, arms open wide to welcome the huddling masses.
Union Station is Fiorito’s tour of his adopted city, from his own neighbourhood, Parkdale, through corner stores and local bars, to the suburban high rises that are home to new immigrants, and to the shelters that offer a tough bed to the many homeless. Fiorito’s Toronto exists here, on the street, in places where diverse cultures jostle side by side and where mercy is free.
Fiorito’s subtle and detailed observations of life in the city are matched by his precise, sinuous prose. On every page, these talents provide a dazzling showcase for the vivid, tender stories he crafts. In the end, we have to agree when he says Toronto will not be a fine town when it is finished. It is a fine town because it is unfinished.
From the Hardcover edition.
Toronto is the city that Canadians love to hate. But they don’t know this city, says Joe Fiorito. Even Torontonians don’t really know this city because it changes every day. It’s not a finished thing, it’s a work in progress. It’s New York in 1900, arms open wide to welcome the huddling masses.
Union Station is Fiorito’s tour of his adopted city, from his own neighbourhood, Parkdale, through corner stores and local bars, to the suburban high rises that are home to new immigrants, and to the shelters that offer a tough bed to the many homeless. Fiorito’s Toronto exists here, on the street, in places where diverse cultures jostle side by side and where mercy is free.
Fiorito’s subtle and detailed observations of life in the city are matched by his precise, sinuous prose. On every page, these talents provide a dazzling showcase for the vivid, tender stories he crafts. In the end, we have to agree when he says Toronto will not be a fine town when it is finished. It is a fine town because it is unfinished.
From the Hardcover edition.
- GenresNonfictionCanada
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 27, 2017
A relatively recent account on the life in New Toronto, this book is a fresh look into the live in the city through the daily lives and sorrows of its inhabitants. The Torontonians are the real places that locate us into the city of Joe Fiorito, as he tells stories of the Italians and their influence, the Polish granny who collects chestnuts in the park or the flower shop owner who has a Frank Sinatra framed picture with an unusual story.
Fiorito is well versed in the rhythm of Toronto, as he stroll regularly by foot on the streets to find new stories for the regular column he fills in for the Star. His prose is sharp, and his characters feel real and well representative of the cultural spectrum.
It is an unusual and unique way to approach the story of Toronto, and intrinsically, Fiorito knows that by focusing on the little people and their lives, in the many small boroughs, the true Toronto will be revealed. Because, even as he contends, the facets the 416 that came to be hated involve in many ways the ones that he doesn't mention - the rich and the powerful, and their high rises, because he views them in a way as a foreign agent with no real Toronto roots. ("I am not interested in those people, or where they came from, although I have a hunch they came here from some small town, perhaps yours")
Fiorito is well versed in the rhythm of Toronto, as he stroll regularly by foot on the streets to find new stories for the regular column he fills in for the Star. His prose is sharp, and his characters feel real and well representative of the cultural spectrum.
It is an unusual and unique way to approach the story of Toronto, and intrinsically, Fiorito knows that by focusing on the little people and their lives, in the many small boroughs, the true Toronto will be revealed. Because, even as he contends, the facets the 416 that came to be hated involve in many ways the ones that he doesn't mention - the rich and the powerful, and their high rises, because he views them in a way as a foreign agent with no real Toronto roots. ("I am not interested in those people, or where they came from, although I have a hunch they came here from some small town, perhaps yours")
July 5, 2012
I found this book slow to get into and, at one point, was going to give up on it. But I'm glad I stuck with it. Now I'd recommend it.
It's not your usual touristy book. It's a book about the people of Toronto ... the homeless, the elderly, the immigrants, even a drag queen. It's about neighbourhoods (I live just east of Parkdale) and the people who live in them.
It's not your usual touristy book. It's a book about the people of Toronto ... the homeless, the elderly, the immigrants, even a drag queen. It's about neighbourhoods (I live just east of Parkdale) and the people who live in them.
June 10, 2013
Excellent read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews