Stanley Park
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Stanley Park

by Timothy Taylor
  • backlist
  • critically-acclaimed
  • from-british-columbia
  • literary
Trained in France, Jeremy Papier, the young Vancouver chef, is becoming known for his unpretentious dishes that highlight fresh, local ingredients. His restaurant, The Monkey's Paw Bistro, while struggling financially, is attracting the attention of local foodies, and is not going unnoticed by Dante Beale, owner of a successful coffeehouse chain, Dante's Inferno. Meanwhile, Jeremy's father, an eccentric anthropologist, has moved into Stanley Park to better acquaint himself with the homeless and their daily struggles for food, shelter and company. Jeremy's father also has a strange fascination for a years-old unsolved murder case, known as "The Babes in the Wood" and asks Jeremy to help him research it. Dante is dying to get his hands on The Monkey's Paw. When Jeremy's elaborate financial kite begins to fall, he is forced to sell to Dante and become his employee. The restaurant is closed for renovations, Inferno style. Jeremy plans a menu for opening night that he intends to be the greatest culinary statement he's ever made, one that unites the homeless with high foody society in a paparazzi-covered celebration of "local splendour."

Contributors

Timothy Taylor, author

Timothy Taylor is an award-winning novelist and journalist. His debut novel, Stanley Park, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Giller Prize, and his most recent novel, The Blue Light Project, was winner of the CBC Bookie Prize in literary fiction. Both his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Canada’s leading publications, and he is the only writer to have had three stories selected and published simultaneously in the Journey Prize Anthology. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

  • A charming first novel…unflaggingly intelligent. - Maclean’s
  • Vancouver writer Timothy Taylor takes a meat cleaver to mystery fiction by packing the novel with backroom culinary politics, a heartwarming tale about a father-son reconciliation and some moralizing on the outrage we should feel about the wastefulness of bourgeois society. What it all simmers down to is a frothy entertainment with a dash of piquancy…it is a well-calculated piece of fiction…with just the right amount of angst and social conscience. - Montreal Gazette
  • Taylor’s debut offers an inside look at the workings of a high-end restaurant, a cut-throat character in the person of a coffeehouse owner who wants to take it over and an intense sense of location, as the title suggests. - NOW Magazine
  • Timothy Taylor writes straight, strong, unadorned prose... He’s well in command of his material. Writes great dialogue. Early on, he sets his scene, gives us Jeremy’s background, and keeps his story, yes, cooking. Stanley Park is alive with the places and sights, sounds and smells, the psychic character of Vancouver. It thrums with a powerful sense of the city, urban surfaces as well as primal currents. Also food… Taylor is as good as the American novelist Jim Harrison when it comes to writing about textures and tangs, colours and sensations. - Quill & Quire

Rights Holder

Rights Holder: Cooke International

email: rights@cookeinternational.com

website: http://www.cookeinternational.com/

rights available: World

Additional Information

number of pages: 432

publication date: 03/20/2001

Original language of pub: English

Materials Available: complete manuscript