This Ain’t No Healing Town

Toronto was once a mean, narrow town, wryly praised as a city of churches, dourly dismissed as Little Belfast, and sneered at as Hoggtown. But the whole city, since the Second World War, has been turned inside-out and upside-down. It’s now big, brassy, gauche but pretentious, imposing yet provincial, stern yet rife with sleaze, a town power-brokered by Anglo-Saxons, yet powered by people of colour from all over the world.

A huge complex town, its life and growth are vividly reflected in the master stories of writers like Morley Callaghan, Timothy Findley, Katherine Govier, Austin Clarke, Barry Callaghan, Margaret Atwood, Joe Rosenblatt, Margaret Gibson, and many more. The city emerges full of vibrancy, shape, and a kind of haphazard sense, with its own characters, its own singularity.