In Timothy Taylor's debut novel Stanley Park, aspiring food artiste Jeremy Papier attempts to juggle the finances of his fledgling eatery, The Monkey's Paw, and his conflicted feelings about his attractive sous-chef. Meanwhile, on the other side of downtown Vancouver, his anthropologist father camps out in Stanley Park to study a group of homeless men. Impending financial ruin drives Jeremy into the clutches of an evil coffee magnate while his father delves deeper into the indigent lifestyle, probing the mystery of two dead children once found in the park as well as his failed marriage to Jeremy's mother. A tragicomic denouement takes the characters back to their human roots as hunter-gatherers in the 21st century.

The big idea in Stanley Park is that global corporate culture threatens the local connections that sustain us. Only the outcasts in Stanley Park retain these connections, and one of them imparts to Jeremy the secret of trapping a swan: "'Stinky box does it,' Caruzo informed, scratching himself. 'Stinky box is all.'" He retrieves a discarded hot dog shipping box and explains the technique: "'I distract him.' Caruzo said. 'You kill him. Distract. Kill.'" Though our hero cannot bring himself to dispatch the bird, he understands the basic link with nature. Stanley Park isn't Crime and Punishment and doesn't pretend to be, even if the vocabulary is sometimes a little pretentious. Taylor, who won Canada's 2000 Journey Prize for his short fiction, tells a good story, creating plausible characters for this coming-of-age narrative and making a good start to a novelistic career. --Robyn Gillam, Amazon.ca


From Publishers Weekly
What's local in a world that is becoming one global monoculture? That's the question confronting Jeremy Papier, the Vancouver chef at the center of Taylor's comic debut novel. Jeremy divides chefs into two types: the transnational Crips, who mix, say, Chilean farm-bred salmon and kimchi, without compunction; and Bloods, who are purists, stubbornly local in their food choices. Along with his friend Jules Capelli, another Blood, Jeremy runs the Monkey's Paw Bistro, making meals from mostly local ingredients for local foodies. Storm clouds lie on the horizon, however. Jeremy is deep in debt. To get by, he scams some $2,000 with the aid of Benny, a customer-turned-girlfriend. The scam backfires, and Jeremy has to turn to Dante Beale, an old family friend and the owner of a national chain of coffee houses, for money. Dante redesigns the bistro, turning it into a potential Crip palace. Jules is fired. Jeremy, under contract, remains. Turning for solace to his father, an anthropologist whose major project is living with the homeless in Stanley Park, Jeremy is reluctantly drawn into his father's work and the investigation of a decades-old mystery involving two children killed in the park. Along the way, he becomes fascinated by cooking for the homeless, and the joys of preparing squirrel, raccoon and starlings carry him into a glorious prank, which he plays at the opening of Beale's redesigned bistro. Taylor has written a sort of cook's version of the anti-WTO protests, striking a heartfelt and entertaining blow against conformity. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Many mysteries--almost all of Dick Francis', for example--serve up an insider's view of this or that subculture or occupation along with the main course. The priorities are reversed in Taylor's debut novel, as the mystery, which involves the unsolved murders of two children some 30 years ago in Vancouver's sprawling Stanley Park, takes a backseat to the activities of brilliant young chef Jeremy Papier. The chef's father, a "participatory anthropologist" living among the homeless in Stanley Park, enlists his son to help solve the long-ago crime, but the greater suspense involves the plight of Chef Papier's popular but financially imperiled new restaurant, and the greater pleasure derives from the deliciously detailed descriptions of his culinary creations. Anyone who likes to eat will be fascinated. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Edmonton Journal
"This is a powerful debut; expect to hear a lot from [Timothy Taylor]."


Winnipeg Free Press
"Extraordinarily creative...Taylor may be on his way to becoming the head chef of Canadian Letters."


Toronto Globe and Mail
"This delicious first novel must be savored."


Review
?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

?Stanley Park is both feat and feast: a smart and enthralling narrative that urgently binds together its twin obsessions with place and food and culminates in a pièce de resistance that proves a triumph both for Chef Jeremy Papier and his creator, Timothy Taylor.? ? Catherine Bush

?Stanley Park grabs an audience in a way that augurs a wide readership. [It?s] like Babette?s Feast or Chocolat. They all celebrate a meal that never was, a hope that the right meal can be turned into a Eucharist. Enjoy!? ? Vancouver Sun

?[A] vibrant debut novel?Taylor is a fine prose craftsman.? ? Andre Mayer, eye, 29 Mar 2001

?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, 5 Apr 2001

?[Stanley Park] is a modern morality play with Jeremy Papier?s very soul at stake?Stanley Park is an assured debut that stands well above many first novels. Taylor is a writer of undeniable talent who has proven himself adept at both the long and short form, and whose wave will no doubt reach the shores.? ? Stephen Finucan, Toronto Star, 1 Apr 2001

?Delicious first novel must be savoured. [This] intelligent and leisurely?novel serves up chi-chi restaurants, Blood and Crip sous chefs and exotic culinary dishes, but it is also a pointed comment on the act of creation ? whether someone is working toward a soufflé, a movie, a work of art or a romp in the sack?[O]ne thing is clear: the talented Timothy Taylor?is very good at writing about food, on a par with Jim Harrison or Sara Suleri?You?ll never look the same way at a weary chef or the loaded, coded words of a menu in your hands.? ? Mark Anthony Jarman, Globe and Mail, 31 Mar 2001

?Vancouver breathes in Stanley Park, from its architecture and granola culture to its status as an American TV-show haven. It is a cosmopolitan, big city pushing to become an international, economic hub. It is also a natural wonder, with an ocean and a mountain range within spitting distance, a rainforest, and enough red tendencies to elect quite a few NDP governments. Jeremy is at once an élitist and a man of the people. Bravo to Timothy Taylor for capturing this tension so well?This is a poweful début; expect to hear a lot from him.? ? Todd Babiak, Edmonton Journal

?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

?A charming first novel?unflaggingly intelligent.? ? Maclean?s

?Your mouth waters as you read Timothy Taylor's first novel. Not since Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast has so lavish a table been set for a reader. If Margaret Atwood's first novel The Edible Woman put you off food, this one will put you back on it?In Stanley Park he does for the restaurant business what John le Carré does for spying; he makes it alluring. And he does for food what Patrick Suskind does for perfume; he makes it exciting?Timothy Taylor has written a novel with a plot to return to, characters to remain with, and themes to think about. The quest for authenticity, for instance, isn't an easy one, either for fictional characters or real people. His style skips along merrily...He also casually slips in some of the most mouth-watering recipes ever sprinkled on the pages of Canadian fiction.? ? J.S. Porter, National Post


Book Description
A love story wrapped in a murder mystery, served up as a laugh-out-loud satire of the trendy urban restaurant scene. Jeremy Papier, the new Alice Waters of the Vancouver food world, is fast becoming known for his radically rear-guard cuisine--tradition-steeped dishes that celebrate the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. His restaurant, The Monkey's Paw Bistro, is always fully booked, but, unfortunately, it's more an artistic triumph than a reasonably run business. Far too costly ever to turn a profit, it is kited by Jeremy on dozens of maxed-out credit cards. An old family friend, Dante Beale, owner of a worldwide chain of cookie-cutter coffeehouses, is willing to bail the restaurant out-- for the price of sole control. It's a business proposition made in hell, one strenuously opposed by Jeremy's pretty young sous chef, the incorruptible, plainspoken Jules. Jeremy's problems deepen when his eccentric-academic father--a "participatory anthropologist" half Joseph Mitchell, half Joe Gould--loses himself among the homeless in Vancouver's Stanley Park. He lives as they do (he's especially adept at catching and roasting sparrows) and soon involves Jeremy in researching a "cold case" crime, the true-life murder of two children slain in the park in the early 1970's. Timothy Taylor--the writer who "everyone in the Canadian literary community today is talking about" (Globe and Mail)--weaves together the disparate, brightly colored strands of his story with unerring skill and unflagging comic invention. Stanley Park, already a Canadian best seller, is a comic novel of the first order--and a memorable literary debut.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jeremy Papier, the new Alice Waters of the Vancouver food scene, is fast becoming known for his radically rear-guard cuisine - tradition-steeped dishes that celebrate the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. His restaurant is always booked, and his Fraser Valley duck breast and Saltspring Island lamb are the talk of the local foodies. The Monkey's Paw Bistro is unquestionably an artistic triumph. Pity it is something less than a well-run business.

Far too costly ever to turn a profit, The Paw is kited on dozens of Jeremy's maxed-out credit cards. An old family friend, Dante Beale, founder of a worldwide chain of cookie-cutter coffee bars, is willing to bail the restaurant out—on condition that he become majority owner. It's a business proposition made in hell, one strenuously opposed by Jeremy's pretty young sous-chef, the incorruptible, plainspoken Jules Capelli.

Jeremy's problems deepen when his eccentric academic father—an obsessed, half-mad "participatory anthropologist"—loses himself among the homeless in Vancouver's Stanley Park. He lives as they do (he's especially adept at catching and roasting starlings) and soon involves Jeremy in researching a "cold case" crime, the real-life murder of two children in the park in the late 1940s.

FROM THE CRITICS

National Post

Not since Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast has so lavish a table been set for the reader

Publishers Weekly

What's local in a world that is becoming one global monoculture? That's the question confronting Jeremy Papier, the Vancouver chef at the center of Taylor's comic debut novel. Jeremy divides chefs into two types: the transnational Crips, who mix, say, Chilean farm-bred salmon and kimchi, without compunction; and Bloods, who are purists, stubbornly local in their food choices. Along with his friend Jules Capelli, another Blood, Jeremy runs the Monkey's Paw Bistro, making meals from mostly local ingredients for local foodies. Storm clouds lie on the horizon, however. Jeremy is deep in debt. To get by, he scams some $2,000 with the aid of Benny, a customer-turned-girlfriend. The scam backfires, and Jeremy has to turn to Dante Beale, an old family friend and the owner of a national chain of coffee houses, for money. Dante redesigns the bistro, turning it into a potential Crip palace. Jules is fired. Jeremy, under contract, remains. Turning for solace to his father, an anthropologist whose major project is living with the homeless in Stanley Park, Jeremy is reluctantly drawn into his father's work and the investigation of a decades-old mystery involving two children killed in the park. Along the way, he becomes fascinated by cooking for the homeless, and the joys of preparing squirrel, raccoon and starlings carry him into a glorious prank, which he plays at the opening of Beale's redesigned bistro. Taylor has written a sort of cook's version of the anti-WTO protests, striking a heartfelt and entertaining blow against conformity. (June) Forecast: Foodies will be the base readership for Taylor's novel (mentions in food magazines and on food Web sites should help alert them to its publication), though it is a literary title in its own right and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in Canada. It should do particularly well on the West Coast, where its political and culinary sensibilities will resonate (Taylor will embark on a West Coast tour). Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews