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Book
Reviews and Quotes
Stanley Park: "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: "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: "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
Stanley
Park: "[A] vibrant debut novel…Taylor
is a fine prose craftsman."
—Andre Mayer, eye,
29 Mar 2001
Stanley
Park: "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: "[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
Stanley
Park: "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
Stanley
Park: "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
Stanley
Park: "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
Stanley
Park: "A charming first novel…unflaggingly
intelligent."
—Maclean’s
Stanley
Park: "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
Silent
Cruise: "There can be little doubt that
Taylor is one of Canada’s best short-story writers….
Taylor rises to the challenge Northrop Frye set for
the poet: he shows us the world completely absorbed
and possessed by the human mind."
—Quill & Quire,
March 2002
Silent
Cruise: "Timothy Taylor exploded
onto the literary scene in Canada last year with his
novel, Stanley Park,
but his real strengths lie in short fiction. Silent Cruise,
a collection of eight previously published short stories
and one new novella, demonstrates Taylor’s diversity
of subject and ease with language…. If you’ve
already read all eight stories in the various literary journals,
then you may think it’s not worth buying the collection.
Wrong. The book is worth it simply for the novella, 'Newstart
2.0 ™'…. Silent Cruise is a chunky collection,
packed with dense and complicated stories. Flaws are minimal,
and they are the result of trying something big. The rarified
narrative level that Taylor inhabits is a delight to explore
in this collection."
—Monday
Magazine, May
2002
Silent
Cruise: "An intriguing collection
of short fiction [from] a master stylist…. Taylor’s
use of language is exact. He has a gift for choosing
exactly the right word to express an idea or an emotion,
giving his writing a feeling of strength and precision.
Each character rings true, enabling the reader to become
engrossed in the stories. Silent Cruise is excellent
writing and enjoyably hypnotic."
—Hamilton
Spectator, May 2002
Silent
Cruise: "These stories are awfully
good, for starters, but good in a way especially likely
to wow you on first reading. Ingenious, is what they
are. Almost every one is a marvel of conception and
construction -- a clever idea even in synopsis, then
shrewdly played out. Taylor has an obvious gift for
plots, one of the storytelling arts that is irresistibly
alluring, but which has fallen somewhat into disuse
among short-story writers. These are page-turners,
with dramatic turns of events and ‘hidden stories’
that are revealed in surprising, trump-card endings….
[O]ne of the pleaseures of his writing is that it is packed
with interesting minutiae about diverse hobbies or obsessions….
Taylor’s stories are intelligent and immensely readable
-- no, enthralling…. Taylor is blessed with a prodigious
dramatic imagination…. as perfectly gemlike as
they come. Nearly every story Taylor has published has
been singled out for some prize or honour, and this
first collection affirms that he is more than just lucky."
—The
Globe and Mail, May 2002
Silent
Cruise: "Intelligen[t] and rich….
A work of baroque elegance and inventiveness … Timothy
Taylor [is] a writer to seek and savour."
—Annabel
Lyon, National Post
Silent
Cruise: "… Timothy Taylor
is a gifted writer who successfully catches the neurotic
(and creative) zeitgeist of our times…. both
amusing and thought provoking….
In Silent Cruise, Taylor treads the subtle border
territory separating outright parody from the strange truths
and beauty of our time... this is a fine collection, and
Timothy Taylor is a major talent who continues to make his
mark on the Canadaina literary scene."
—Times
Colonist,
May 2002
Silent
Cruise: "An eclectic collection…."
—The
Edmonton Journal, June 2002
Links to Extra Resources
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