Vancouver

Historical fiction can be tough to do, but David Cruise and Alison Griffiths have put together a very solid read that relies less on history and more on fiction. With historical fiction, writers can dip into a character's point of view and write down the nuances of thought and motivation -- something that biographies and histories rarely get to do. "Vancouver" covers numerous individuals who form the cultural basis for modern-day Vancouver. A narrative hook (actually two different ones, but they share the same origin) runs through the stories, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in passing, echoing to different effect in each major section of the book.To the authors' credit, they do not try to be politically correct or present an activist screed for the various peoples in the guise of story. They describe the people and their conditions as best as possible, despite the inevitable guesswork needed when researching the journals or writings of less-than-objective contemporaries.If the story has a flaw, it is that the characters become flatter and more two-dimensional the closer they get to contemporary times. This is in part by necessity, since the characters are fictionalized and must be squeezed into an existing world of people and politics. There is less freedom to create interesting characters out of whole cloth, and as a result the latter third of the book feels less compelling than the preceding sections. In the end, the book doesn't celebrate the vibrant, patchwork quilt that is Vancouver; instead, it looks backward to the past with bittersweet remembrance, rather than forward to the future.If you are looking for more history about Vancouver and less fiction about people, then you may want to look elsewhere. This is not a "Cliff's Notes" history of the city; in my opinion, a dash of historical reference would have helped tremendously. I've been to Vancouver several times, yet I wanted to refer to a map in order to have a mental anchor for the places mentioned. Without a map in the book, geographical references like "across the bay" or "next to the smaller mouth of the river" were turned into abstractions, which was a shame; since so much effort went into creating the characters, they deserved a more concrete setting. A few historical maps scattered throughout would have been invaluable, at least for my own sense of curiosity.Despite my nitpicking, the book warrants four stars. I've recommended the book to various friends and relatives who have high standards and who enjoy well-written works. It's tough to write this type of book, and David and Alison have done an excellent job bringing the various stories together.

I enjoyed this book from cover to cover...it really did hold my attention. However, there were many flaws, mostly in the flow of time. For example...if a person is stated to be 35 years old in a certain year...well he is NOT, then, 59 years old just 14 years later. Stuff like that drives me nuts. The other flaw in this book....and this may or may not be considered a flaw...is that most of the characters are really unlikable...even the likable ones have serious character defects.

I was strongly reminded of Rutherford's "Sarum" as I read this book. "Vancouver, a Novel" traces a history of Vancouver, in 12 sections, from the prehistoric to the present-day. It starts with an intriguing anthropological idea that people from Africa migrated to Alaska. This leads onto stories of the descendants moving and mingling further down the Pacific coast, and the impact of the Western, Chinese and Asian 'pioneers'. A weakness in the book is that the dialogue in the early sections is quite dire. Some of the speculative ficition is quite gripping (the deaths of the first Spainards, the reasons for the settlement of the first 6 Sikhs), and some of the situations and characters I recognised from Vancouver history books. Unfortunately the distinction between historical fiction and history is blurred. I would have appreciated a decent biblography at the end of the book (or even better, footnotes to the chapters) so I can find out the difference between fact and fiction. Also the book is crying out for some decent maps! Hopefully this can be remedied in a second edition.This book clearly has been well researched, and there is a wealth of information about First Nations customs, class structures (tribal, immigrant etc). It is an enjoyable, fast paced read.