Heart of the City by Robert Rotenberg

Heart of the City is the fifth novel in Robert Rotenberg's mystery series set in Toronto and featuring Homicide Detective Ari Greene. I love this series, and if you aren't familiar with it, you should start with the first book, Old City Hall.  Like all good series, the characters and their relationships evolve and develop and if you start on book five, it will ruin many a plot twist.

So why do I love this series? I can sum it up in one word: authenticity. Rotenberg is a criminal lawyer, and he brings a depth of understanding of the Canadian legal system, police procedure, and court process to his novels. His books cannot be strictly described as police procedurals since often the focus is less on what has led to a suspect's arrest and more on the actual trial.  I once spoke with a Crown Attorney, who told me how a murder trial can be all consuming and leave one drained, and that is exactly what Rotenberg portrays: that tight claustrophobic world from the inside.  He reveals process and procedure and legal strategy, but in such a way that it never feels like you accidentally stumbled into a dry criminal law seminar at Osgoode Hall.

The other reason I love this series is how he captures the essence of Toronto. As a former resident, I feel transported back to the city. Every detail he offers up, from the gargoyles on Old City Hall to the decor of the local Tim Horton's, rings true. He has a wonderful eye for detail and explores every corner of the city: its diversity and dark alleys, as well as its dreams and obsessions.  And in Heart of the City, he dives into one of Toronto's biggest obsessions--real estate development.

At the end of the previous novel, Ari Greene had left the police services and moved to England for a year, but now he's back in the city and working in construction. Greene is clearly not meant to live the simple life of a labourer, for at the end of his first week on the job he discovers a dead body on the construction site. The victim is Livingston Fox, the boy wonder developer who is transforming the skyline of Toronto. Along the way Fox has accumulated a broad range of enemies, including activists who are protesting his most recent development in the iconic Kensington Market neighbourhood, fellow developers who may want to take over some of his projects, and dissatisfied clients and business associates who are suing him for various reasons. Toss in a bitter ex-girlfriend and slightly daft parents, and you have an intriguing range of potential suspects. Although Greene claims he wants to turn away from his former life, he cannot help but insert himself into the investigation.

As in all his novels, Rotenberg not only presents a satisfying murder mystery, but also delves into Toronto's larger issues: the rapid development and foreign investment that is making it unaffordable for many to live in the city; the strong NIMBYist tendencies as traditional neighbourhoods come under threat; and the rise of social media journalism and its uncomfortable relationship with traditional media.

I would highly recommend the whole series.

Four smileys out of five: 😀😀😀😀

American War by Omar El Akkad

American War is the second dystopian novel, I have reviewed this year.  There just seems to be something about 2017 that makes it hard to believe our civilization has a bright future.  While Station Eleven focused on a single apocalyptic incident, the spread of a super bug that kills most of humanity, American War offers up a cornucopia of misery.  The novel envisions a near future for the United States that includes massive human displacement from global warming, the banning of fossil fuels, an American civil war, not one but two human-engineered plagues, and monstrous out-of-control war machines that randomly rain death from the skies.

I believe that speculative fiction can be most powerful when it provides a portal to view our current issues from a new perspective.  It can provide insights into the potential consequences of our actions by showing intelligent alien life or people from the future looking back on our follies. It can also question our assumptions about deeply ingrained cultural beliefs by presenting similar behaviours but in a different context, like the 1969 Star Trek episode "Let that be your last battlefield," that explored the madness of racism.  American War provides so many opportunities to reframe our awareness it can be almost dizzying to establish the main takeaway.

The timeframe of the novel focuses on 2074 to 2095, the years of the Second American Civil War.  Much of the country has already been ravaged by climate change: coastal regions are underwater, farmland is parched, and the political and economic centre of the country has moved to the midwest. Civil war is triggered when the northern states try to impose a national ban on the use of fossil fuels, and the south rises up in defiance.  The story follows the members of one family who find themselves caught in the dangerous and soul-destroying business of trying to be civilians in the midst of war.

The novel is richly layered.  We not only must contemplate the impact of our current actions on climate change, but how we are responding to the international refugee crisis. In El Akkad's future the Middle East forms a stable empire (after the fifth Arab uprising) and Americans and Europeans are fleeing their homes for safety and opportunity. Throughout, the war feels like any one of America's  proxy wars being fought currently in the Middle East or thirty years ago in Central America. Small dirty wars, orchestrated from abroad, and intending to create maximum chaos to destabilize the region.  It leaves one with a sense of how it must feel when your home becomes the battlefield for some other nation's ambition.

But it is also about the impact of war on the human psyche: how propaganda and the constant need for revenge fuels war, how tribalism springs from conflict and how children raised in a refugee camp can easily be manipulated to assert their place in the world.

In some ways, American War feels prophetic while simultaneously feeling out of date. It was published in April 2017, and although it predicts many of the fault lines broken open with the Trump administration, it also seems to miss some of the major themes. For example, by October 2017, the the only thing that feels implausible about a second American Civil War, is that it would take so long to break out. 2074 is over fifty years from now.  Also the novel is strangely silent on the issue of race. In light of the recent resurgence of blatant white supremacy, it is hard to imagine a future civil war between the north and the south where race would not be a triggering issue. Reading American War actually makes me feel nostalgic for the lovely innocence of 2016, when we still believed that the President of the United States could be trusted to denounce the actions of Neo-Nazis.

The vision El Akkad offers of the future is bleak and provides little space for the reader to imagine redemption, either personal, political or global.  Yet for those who are willing to contemplate the potential consequences of our actions and to imagine their world transformed from one of privilege to marginalization, American War will both provoke and enlighten.

Four smileys out of five: 😀😀😀😀

Martin John by Anakana Schofield

I think for the first time since I started these reviews, that I have been tempted not to finish a book--just toss it aside and move on to something else. And if I had not invested so much time into it, and had allowed myself enough time to read another book and still meet my weekly deadline I probably would have. That is not to say that this is not a good, possibly even great, novel, but it drained me of thought and energy. It is utterly exhausting.

Martin John is the story of mentally ill man told largely from his own perspective.  I am no psychologist, but he seems to suffer from obsessions and compulsions, hoarding, paranoia, hallucinations, memory loss (possibly faked or possibly the result of his medications), and a disturbing range of sexual dysfunctions.  Much of the novel is told in a stream of consciousness inside Martin John's own mind. It is random, repetitive, disjointed, chaotic, and utterly exhausting. The fact that it so envelops you in his mental state is proof that the novel is powerfully written.   Indeed, Martin John is a master class in the use of perspective and voice. But I was disturbed by the lack of order--it moves through different timeframes, jumps from the perspective of Martin John to his mother to a woman he has assaulted and random observers. Each character offers up a slice of the story, but in ways that make it difficult to establish a coherent chain of events. No doubt this disorder is indicative of the protagonist's state of mind, but it just tired me out.

The descriptions of his actions and the motivations behind them are evocative without being compelling.  Any woman who has had a strange man rub up against her inappropriately in a crowded train (and let's face it that's just about every woman who has ever ridden in a crowded train) will recognize him.  It brought back strong memories of similar situations from my own past. Yet that recognition doesn't seem to be offered up with any startling insights, so it strikes me as sad, pointless and utterly exhausting.

It does have moments of wit, but they do not make up for the sheer tediousness of being in Martin John's head for so many hundreds of pages.  Sadly, I can only recommend it to someone with more sympathy and significantly more energy than I have.

Two and half out of five smileys.😊😊😶

I Hear She's a Real Bitch by Jen Agg

I honestly just don't know what to make of this book.  No matter how I think about it, I just don't get it.

Admittedly, I had never heard of Jen Agg or The Black Hoof restaurant before I started to hear all the buzz for I Hear She's a Real Bitch. I had no idea what to expect, but as a bit of a foodie, and a bit of a feminist, and a former resident of Toronto, I was intrigued. Besides, it's got a catchy title, Agg looks dead cool on the cover, and the publisher blurb said "A sharp and candid memoir from a star in the restaurant world, and an up and coming literary voice." I'm a total sucker for a good publisher blurb, even though I used to write them and should know better.

So I came to this with limited expectations, but a desire to believe that she's probably not a bitch, and I thought I was pretty open minded.  However, a few chapters in I began to wonder about it being described as a memoir.  In my mind the difference between memoir and autobiography is that the essence of memoir is the self-reflective voice.  This voice not only tells you what happened, but how the narrator feels about the experience after reflecting on it with what one hopes is honesty and self-awareness.  Autobiography is much more a linear description of events, starting in childhood and moving forward.   With these definitions in mind, I felt that I Hear She's a Real Bitch, could be much more accurately described as a celebrity autobiography.

She begins by describing her childhood, growing up in Scarborough, and focuses on stories that prove both her precociousness and her strong need to rebel, which led me to my next thoughts on the book.  In all probably she is not a bitch, but she sure comes across as a bit of a narcissist. Throughout she shows an over the top tendency to describe herself as a woman of extraordinary good taste, intelligence, artistic ability, business acumen, and vision. Not that there is anything wrong for someone to go through life with a healthy dose of self-esteem. As she puts it herself, "I had spent my whole adult life believing in my infallibility, because I had to teach myself that I was just as capable as a man, despite all the subtle and not so subtle cultural signals to the contrary."  Yet, on the other hand there is something desperate sounding in her constant need for recognition and approval. The louder someone protests their accomplishments, the less inclined I am to believe them--I call this the "Trump Inversion."

As I moved further into the book I began to wonder if she was just trying to do a hatchet job on people who have disappointed her in the past.  She seems sharply aware of every time someone betrayed her, but simply glosses over her betrayal of others--just ask her high school best friend. There also seems to be a strong undercurrent of blaming others for her failures and taking full credit for her successes. It was her first husband's fault her first bar went bankrupt, and an amazing amount of stuff was her first chef/partner's fault. Yet in the end, I must admit there is more to the book than that.

At one point I thought it might be a lovingly produced promo piece for her restaurants.  She waxes poetic about every fixture, drink, dish, bar stool and strip of wall paper in all her restaurants. It reads somewhat like one of those glossy brochures for a new condominium development.  But again, I clearly don't get it, because in the end all the talk from inside the industry just left me with a desire to stop eating out and cook at home.  There is apparently way too much status seeking in the restaurant world for me to ever fully value and appreciate the experience I would be offered.

There is a breathlessness to her prose, that is sometimes charming but other times sounds like a ten year old trying to relate the plot of all the Star Wars movies in under ten minutes.  She speaks strongly about gender inequality, but with an innocence that leaves me with the impression she is completely unaware of the numerous waves of feminist action and theory that preceded her.  There is also a surprising amount of vulgarity, and I can't quite decide whether I think that is to establish her rebel credibility or her feminist creditably.

So in the end all I can say is that I just don't get it.

Two and a half smileys out of five. 😀😀😶

A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable

A Paris Apartment is a fictional treatment of a fascinating real life event. In 2010, a 91-year old woman died in the south of France, leaving in her estate an apartment in Paris that had not been touched for 70 years.  She had inherited it from her grandmother, but abandoned it in 1942 and never returned. Her grandmother, Marthe de Florian,  had been a Belle Epoque courtesan, and her apartment was a time capsule filled with fine furniture, books and newspapers, and most spectacularly a never-before-seen portrait of de Florian by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini. I recall hearing about it at the time and thinking, "What a fantastic idea for a novel." Apparently Michelle Gable did as well.

Gable builds her fictional world around April Vogt, an antique furniture appraiser working for Sotheby's to catalogue the find and help prepare it for auction.  She is enduring a rough patch in her marriage, so she jumps at the chance to leave New York and work in Paris.  Upon arrival she falls in love with the Boldini portrait and becomes obsessed with finding out more about the original owner, the glamorous and mysterious Marthe de Florian. The two women's stories are interwoven, as April slowly reveals her own secrets while also reading entries from Marthe's diaries.

The novel offers rich and fascinating details of Paris in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century and the author has a talent for pacing and creating suspense. However, it struck me as somewhat formulaic.  There seems to be a current fashion in novels where the author takes some historical period or incident, overlays it with a modern narrator, throws in both a romance and a mystery, fills it with lots of historical detail, shakes vigorously, and shazam, it's a bestseller.  Gable has managed to combine all, but occasionally falls into predictable and cliched situations.  At times I was left wondering if I was reading an art history text book, a contemporary travel guide to Paris or perhaps a Harlequin romance.

In order to keep the interest level high, Gable layers multiple stories into the narrative, so we are introduced not only to April's husband, his ex-wife, her step-children and the handsome Parisian lawyer Luc, but also learn about her conflicted relationship with her own father and mother--in addition to all of Marthe's loves, friendships and rivalries.  Eventually it feels a bit too much. Like the apartment it describes, the novel is jam-packed full with the beautiful, the arcane and the trivial, all demanding the reader's attention.  A Paris Apartment might have been more successful, if it had been slightly less ambitious.

Three smileys out of five. 😀😀😀

How to Run a Government by Michael Barber

A couple of months ago, I wrote a review of What is Government Good At? by Donald Savoie. In that book, Savoie explained the disconnect in government between the creation of policy and the implementation of policy.  Michael Barber's How to Run a Government is the perfect followup book, as it looks entirely at implementation. Anyone who has been working at the policy level in the public service would have heard and possibly been confused by the latest buzz word "deliverology." Barber, or more formally Sir Michael Barber, is one of the founders of this new approach to government. From 2001 to 2005, he was the first head of the Prime Minister's delivery unit in the UK. Since then the concept of deliverology has spread around the world, including to Dalton McGuinty's Ontario and Justin Trudeau's federal government.

At its essence, this is a "how to" book (as the title would indicate). Barber sets out the process of how to apply his ideas in a government organization.  He sets out his 57 rules of delivery, that range from Rule 7: "Consult without conceding on ambition (opposition is inevitable)" to Rule 44: "There is no substitute for sustained, disciplined political leadership" or my favourite Rule 33: "Government by routine beats government by spasm (it's not even close)." Throughout he illustrates his rules with examples from projects that he has worked on from all around the world, in both developed and developing nations.

Barber's idea is really rather simple--choose a small number of priorities, set targets, focus relentlessly on achieving those targets, and build in irreversibility.  It seems fairly obvious, but it is not how government often works.  Instead the tendency is to try to be all things to all people, claiming that everything is a priority, preparing endless reviews and reports, and failing to follow through on implementation.  Most helpfully, Barber explains the elements of government culture that will resist change and how to overcome them.

This is clearly a title that will appeal to the more wonkish reader, however, it is written in a clear accessible style and provides insights into how organizations function that crosses outside the narrow world of government and public service.

Four smileys out of five: 😀😀😀😀

Hunger by Roxane Gay

This is the book that everyone was talking about on my Twitter feed a few months ago.  Written by Roxane Gay, the acclaimed social critic and author of Bad Feminist, it is a excruciatingly honest personal memoir that looks at sex, gender, violence, body-image and healing.  Subtitled “A Memoir of (My) Body,” Hunger relates Gay’s struggles with her body, how society views her body, and her need to find a way to heal and love her “unruly body and unruly appetites.” Superficially the problem with her body is its size; at her heaviest Gay weighed 577 pounds at six feet, three inches. But don’t expect a predictable narrative of weight-loss and triumph, instead she offers a sophisticated critique of how women’s bodies are defined in our society, how they are weighed and judged and valued, and how they are ignored and mocked.  She says about writing this memoir, “I’ve been forced to look at my guiltiest secrets. I’ve cut myself wide open. I am exposed. That is not comfortable. That is not easy.” It is also not comfortable or easy for the reader.  We are not accustomed to confronting such raw, unfiltered intimacy.  And for me, as a woman who has been fat, and thin, and then fat again, I am shocked to see so many of my own guiltiest secrets articulated, shared and rendered slightly less powerful or shameful.

At the heart of Gay’s story is a terrifying incident that happened when she was twelve years old. She was lured to an isolated cabin by a boy she liked and was raped by him and several of his friends.  Be warned, her telling of this incident is graphic and horrifying.  Her life can be clearly bisected into the before and after of that traumatic assault, and it was after this event she started to gain weight.  Throughout the memoir she circles back to what happened, her response to it, and how it altered her relationship with the world and her own body.

Much of the memoir relates the day to day humiliations of living “in a world where the open hatred of fat people is vigorously tolerated and encouraged.”  The humiliations come from the cruel and vindictive people who attack her regularly on social media; from those who at least try to appear to be well-meaning (“People are quick to offer you statistics and information about the dangers of obesity, as if you are not only fat but also incredibly stupid…”); but some of the worst humiliations come from simply living in a world not designed to accommodate your body. She has a whole chapter on the dangers of chairs: the ones that may collapse under her weight, the ones with narrow unforgiving armrests that bruise her, and the ones she can never expect to fit into.

There is definitely a therapeutic element to her memoir, she herself says “Writing this book is a confession.” But overall, it feels more like an exorcism; a violent attempt to expose and banish the demons that have been tormenting her since that day in the woods when she was twelve years old. And there is also a tone of vindication, an insistence that her body deserves love and compassion, and that eventually we cannot continue “to delude ourselves that our bodies [are] our biggest problem.”

I am hesitant to recommend this book, because it is so raw. Yet, Hunger is also a source of liberation for women who must constantly overcome their own "unruly body and unruly appetites.” And let’s face it, isn’t that all of us.  For what is a woman’s body if not, by definition, unruly, and in constant need of sculpting, reducing, enlarging, plucking, shaving, being made up, to become in the end both hidden away and publicly displayed.  And a woman’s unruly appetites are even worse, driving humankind into a vortex of anxiety, fear and sin since the Garden of Eden.  But if you dare, read Hunger, and experience a whole new way to look at the world from inside another body.

Four smileys out of five: 😀😀😀😀