Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
One cold November day, Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall heads out on just such a quest. He packs up a new tent, some clothes, his notebooks and a pen and goes to live in Tent City, twenty-seven lawless acres where the largest hobo town on the continent squats in the scandalized shadow of Canada’s largest city. The rules he sets for himself are simple: no access to money, family or friends, except what he can find from that day on. He’ll do whatever people in Tent City do to get by, be whatever bum, wino, beggar, hustler, criminal, junkie or con man he chooses to be on any given day.
When he arrives, he finds a dump full of the castaways of the last millennium, human and otherwise. On the edge of the world, yet somehow smack in the middle of it all, fugitives, drug addicts, prostitutes, dealers and ex-cons have created an anarchic society, where the rules are made up nightly and your life depends on knowing them. Not only does Bishop-Stall manage to survive until the bulldozers come, but against all odds his own heart and spirit slowly mend. An astonishing account of birth, suicide, brawls, binges, tears, crazed laughter, good and bad intentions, fiendish charity and the sudden eloquence and generosity of broken souls, Down to This is Bishop-Stall’s iridescent love song to a lost city like no other.
Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
SHAUGHNESSY BISHOP-STALL’s first book was an account of the year he spent in deep cover, living with the homeless in Toronto’s infamous Tent City. Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Trillium Book Award and the Toronto Book Award. The following year, he was awarded the Knowlton Nash Fellowship for Journalism at Massey College. His first novel, Ghosted, published in 2010, was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Bishop-Stall currently teaches writing at the University of Toronto and is a regular columnist for SHARP magazine.
Related to Down to This
Related ebooks
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Hagee: No Free Lunch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Lark, One Horse: Poems Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5While England Sleeps: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greater Thief Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHell's Portal Gutter Punks of New Orleans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of a Lombard Alchemist: Collected Lombard Alchemist, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetry is Queer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Gods Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jack Hagee: Something For Nothing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrog Gig and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMother Chicago: Truant Dreams and Specters Over the Gilded Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Good Deed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDie Young with Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reflections: The World of Paul Monette Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmuggler: a tale of [dis] organized crime Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRight Tool for the Job: A Memoir of Manly Concerns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProbably the Secret Police and Other Slices Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Selected Stories of O. Henry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirty John and Other True Stories of Outlaws and Outsiders Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Country of Ghosts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChristmas Stories: The Complete Collection — In the Tradition of Rod Serling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTriumph of the Ape Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBonepile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShoot the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe War Is Over, Let's Go Shopping ˖ Stories by Paul A. Toth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinders Bleeders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poverty & Homelessness For You
My Brother's Name Is Kenny Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why the Homeless Have No Chance: The Dismantling of Success Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlways with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Evicted: by Matthew Desmond - Poverty and Profit in the American City - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man in the Dog Park: Coming Up Close to Homelessness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Economic Dependency Trap: Breaking Free to Self-Reliance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Class Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo Rich, So Poor: Why It's so Hard to End Poverty in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Injustice, Inc.: How America's Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFucked at Birth: Recalibrating the American Dream for the 2020s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe People of the Abyss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trapped in America's Safety Net: One Family's Struggle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5NO LONGER HOMELESS: How the Ex-Homeless Get and Stay off the Street Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEconomic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Far From Home: Stories of the homeless and the search for the heart's true home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings$2.00 A Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Workhouse: The People, the Places, the Life Behind Doors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Down to This
15 ratings0 reviews