About
Some years ago, a Toronto taxi driver of South Asian descent asked me where I was born. I answered, “Queen and Yonge,” meaning, of course, St. Michael’s Hospital. He glanced at me in his rear-view mirror and said, “Oh, you’re a real Torontonian. I don’t get many of them.”
And it’s true, I guess. I was born in the heart of the city. As were my parents. Except for six years studying Jungian psychology abroad in London and Zürich, I’ve remained mostly ‘true’ to my hometown. I was raised and mostly educated here; I attended the University of Toronto for five years. I have a house here. And friends. Over the years many friends, from all corners of the world.
I’m frequently annoyed to hear people putting Toronto down, especially people who live here. People from the West Coast or Montréal who slag Toronto are, I find, easily dismissed. They’re doing the impossible: comparing apples and oranges. But locals who call it “boring” or “unfriendly” are simply not seeing things clearly. Even when it was in its extensive Toronto the Good phase, the city always had surprises up its sleeve.
I’ve written about it before. In a 1976 collection of stories called Gardens, it was always present in the background as a kind of hum. It was there implicitly in the book of dance writing focussing on Toronto companies that appeared a couple of years later, Dance as Dance. And in An Arc of Red Crystals, another story collection from 1990, it was once again a canvas against which the human dramas played out. In my current novel, The Jane Loop, the city is actually a major character, as important as my young protagonist. Wearing the colours and textures of 1962, Toronto represents the chaotic life young Neil Bennett longs to explore. There will doubtless be more novels where Toronto plays a central role.
Selected Writings
Fiction:
The Jane Loop. Cormorant Books, 2016
An Arc of Red Crystals. Brandstead Press, 1990
The Gothic Impulse. Brandstead Press, 1988
Gardens. Catalyst Press, 1976
Poetry
Porcelain Letters. Brandstead Press, 1982
Non-Fiction:
The Living Room Mysteries Patterns of Male Intimacy, Book 2. Inner City, 1993
The Secret Lore of Gardening Patterns of Male Intimacy, Book 1. Inner City, 1991
Dance as Dance. Catalyst Press, 1978.