Keefer Street
Historical Fiction
- Price
- $24.95
Jake’s life is shaped by the Spanish Civil War and the not-so-civil wars that go on within families and intimate relationships.
With engaging wit and originality, David Spaner does for Vancouver what writers like Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth did for Montreal and Newark. Jake Feldman grows up on Keefer Street in the dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver. This is the first novel to bring to life the vibrancy of Strathcona and its largely Jewish Keefer Street.
Jake’s left-wing, rabble-rousing street politics of his youth eventually lead him to leave Depression-era Vancouver to join the international volunteers fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But his return home is unheralded and his idealism is worn down by the mundaneness of everyday life and family conflict.
Fifty years later, he recaptures the passion of his youth during a reunion of civil war volunteers in Spain. Keefer Street explores how to preserve your idealism in order to live a life of purpose.
Reviews
Nominated for the George Ryga Prize for Social Awareness in Literature
Nominated: Western Canada Jewish Book Awards
“This critical moment in twentieth-century fascist history should be required reading for any person troubled by our world right now. In hard-boiled prose, David Spaner has rendered a heartbreaking, sometimes wry, and deeply moving novel about regular citizens who courageously chose to step up in defence of freedom and the consequences of that choice.” —Maureen Medved, author of Black Star and The Tracey Fragments
“Spaner has a gift for characterization and dialogue and creates a whole world of believable characters and interpersonal drama. Highly recommended.” —Vancouver Sun
“This is the very best of Jewish-related Spanish Civil War novels that I’ve ever seen. Everything in the novel is handled beautifully. My favorite left-wing novel of the year!” —Paul Buhle, co-editor of Brigadistas! An American Anti-Fascist in the Spanish Civil War
“The narrative of Jake’s life is a sober chronicle of the 20th-century Left.” —Event Magazine
“Reading David Spaner’s novel about Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil War is an exciting way to learn about that bloody prelude to the Second World War. The book is recommended reading for anyone who was part of the left in the 1960s or wants to learn more about it. It should also become a textbook for high school history classes in need of a dose of truth about Canada’s role in a conflict that still puzzles and fascinates the world.” —Ron Verzuh, The BC Review
“For a good introduction to 1930s Vancouver, pick up a copy of David Spaner’s novel Keefer Street.” —BC BookWorld
“Lively and penetrating.” —Tom Wayman, author of If You’re Not Free at Work, Where Are You Free?: Literature and Social Change
“David Spaner knows the history he writes about. A welcome addition to the field of Canadian fiction.” —Jonah Raskin, author of Beat Blues: San Francisco, 1955
Book Details
Pub Date: November 2024
Trade Paperback
318 pages
Print ISBN 9781553807209
E-book ISBN 9781553807216
5” x 8”
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