Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor

I browsed my own shelves for something to read over the days leading up to and after David's wedding: an unusual exercise, because supposedly every book is on my shelf because I want to read it- the only question is "What do I want to read NOW?"  So I decided on Stanley Park.  Caryn, at Smoothwater, was reading this when we first visited there, and I could see as I was reading it, why she enjoyed it- I do recall her telling us that only that morning a new worker had accidentally run over a small animal- I don't remember what- and she had come out to find the animal was still warm, and it was marinating in her kitchen ready for eating that evening.  My stomach twinged a bit when I heard that, and as a group we decided we wouldn't tell the other girls about her comments.

Now I know why, because in this book, Jeremy, a Vancouver chef who's opened a new restauarant, who also has connections to the homeless in Stanley Park, changes the opening night menu.  I quote:  "...a dozen plump Canada geese, a dozen grey rock doves, six canvasbacks, four large rabbits, fifteen grey squirrels, four huge racoons, and a huge swan".  At this point, wasn't I happy this was fiction?  The fish course was to include goldfish, flatfish and periwinkle.  The menus, of course, would not state the true source, so needless to say Jeremy got himself into a pile of trouble.

The novel was also too long - some 475 pages.  There were interesting side-plots, and I had nothing else to read with me, so I trudged through this, and skimmed through the last 50 pages or so. 

Yuck...