Laughing into the Stench
Circa 1996, when I was an adolescent, my father took me on a summer vacation to the Northwest and British Columbia. What I glimpsed of Canada struck me as comparatively unspoiled, cleaner, and more orderly than what I was accustomed to seeing in the United States. (Another thing I noticed was that restaurants never put ice in the drinks.) Vancouver, however, was something altogether different, and I think I was a little surprised to discover that Canada also had a homeless problem. What stood out above all else, though, was just how Asian the city was, the staggering numbers of East Asians and Subcontinentals challenging my previous concept of Canada as a solidly European country. One grocery store we entered was full of shoppers wearing turbans – something I had never experienced even in the multicultural US. I was reminded of these impressions last week when I read Canuck contrarian Jay Black’s 2004 novella Guttersnipe , which just happens to be set in Vancouver in the summer of