Some Recent Nonfiction
The Hotel Vancouver occupation, plus some book recommendations
Two years ago I was in Sechelt for a literary festival. My Great Uncle Don came to the event and we went for lunch. He told me the story of how my grandfather had been one of the World War 2 veterans who occupied the old Hotel Vancouver. With no housing for them or their families, and the hotel standing empty, the group of vets marched into the hotel and took it over, running it themselves until the government caved. As a kid, Uncle Don visited my grandparents when they lived there.
I’d never heard the story before. He told me I should write about it. The result is now up at Montecristo.
Thursday May 8th, save the date for the Ocean Drive/A Lonesome Place for Dying book launch!
7pm at the Irish Heather on Keefer Street. Both Sam Wiebe and Nolan Chase will be in attendance. Pulp Fiction Books will be handling sales.
Speaking of Lonesome place, the book just got its second starred review, this one from Publishers Weekly!
“[A] standout procedural . . . Chase throws a lot of balls in the air, and he juggles them like a seasoned pro, managing to carve out a distinctly memorable protagonist in the process.”
Pre-order your copies of Ocean Drive and A Lonesome Place for Dying from your favorite independent bookshop.
Some Recent Nonfiction Reads:
Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe
An enraging and heart-cracking story of how the medical establishment and the justice system was bent to the will of a cold-blooded family of doctors, and the artists, litigators, and journalists who dragged their crimes into the open.
The Marriage Question, Claire Carlisle
A biography of George Eliot, who defied Victorian society in both her life and art, the book is also a philosophical examination of marriage, what it is and what it means, and who decides.
Kiese Laymon’s memoir, written to his mother, attempts to unpack a personal history of education, health, money, violence, white supremacy and black resilience.
A bio of Abraham Lincoln told through 13 interactions with his contemporaries, from pro-slavery politicians to Frederick Douglass to a woman who fought in the Civil War and petitioned Lincoln for her pay. (She got it.)
David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) tells of a shipwreck and mutiny which changed the world and influenced everyone from Melville to Patrick O’Brian. But it’s really about the cost of empire.
Nobody Knows My Name, James Baldwin
A collection of James Baldwin’s essays written abroad, including pieces on Faulkner and Richard Wright, as well as an interview with Ingmar Bergman.
A Life of My Own, Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin’s autobiography includes encounters with the literary greats of her time, as well as her own battles as a widowed single mother making her mark in publishing and literary biography.
Claire Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys was great too.
I never knew about that hotel occupation, good article. (And I'm reading Empire of Pain right now, very well written but it's hard stuff to read about.)