Aspiring food artiste Jeremy Papier, in Timothy Taylor’s debut novel, Stanley Park, attempts to juggle the finances of his fledgling eatery, The Monkey’s Paw, and his conflicted feelings about his attractive sous-chef. Meanwhile, on the other side of downtown Vancouver, his anthropologist father camps out in Stanley Park to study a group of homeless men. Impending financial ruin drives Jeremy into the clutches of an evil coffee magnate while his father delves deeper into the indigent lifestyle, probing the mystery of two dead children once found in the park as well as his failed marriage to Jeremy’s mother. A tragicomic denouement takes the characters back to their human roots as hunter-gatherers in the 21st century.

PRAISE FOR STANLEY PARK:

“Stanley Park is alive with the places and sights, sounds and smells, the psychic character of Vancouver. It thrums with a powerful sense of the city, urban surfaces as well as primal currents. Also food … Taylor is as good as the American novelist Jim Harrison when it comes to writing about textures and tangs, colours and sensations.” — Quill & Quire

“Stanley Park grabs an audience in a way that augurs a wide readership. [It’s] like Babette’s Feast or Chocolat. They all celebrate a meal that never was, a hope that the right meal can be turned into a Eucharist. Enjoy!” — Vancouver Sun

“[A] vibrant debut novel…Taylor is a fine prose craftsman.” — Andre Mayer, eye

“Taylor’s debut offers an inside look at the workings of a high-end restaurant, a cut-throat character in the person of a coffeehouse owner who wants to take it over and an intense sense of location, as the title suggests.” — NOW Magazine

“[Stanley Park] is a modern morality play with Jeremy Papier’s very soul at stake…Stanley Park is an assured debut that stands well above many first novels. Taylor is a writer of undeniable talent who has proven himself adept at both the long and short form, and whose wave will no doubt reach the shores.” Toronto Star

“Delicious first novel must be savoured. [This] intelligent and leisurely…novel serves up chi-chi restaurants, Blood and Crip sous chefs and exotic culinary dishes, but it is also a pointed comment on the act of creation — whether someone is working toward a soufflé, a movie, a work of art or a romp in the sack…[O]ne thing is clear: the talented Timothy Taylor…is very good at writing about food, on a par with Jim Harrison or Sara Suleri…You’ll never look the same way at a weary chef or the loaded, coded words of a menu in your hands.” Globe and Mail

“Vancouver breathes in Stanley Park, from its architecture and granola culture to its status as an American TV-show haven. It is a cosmopolitan, big city pushing to become an international, economic hub. It is also a natural wonder, with an ocean and a mountain range within spitting distance, a rainforest, and enough red tendencies to elect quite a few NDP governments. Jeremy is at once an élitist and a man of the people. Bravo to Timothy Taylor for capturing this tension so well…This is a poweful début; expect to hear a lot from him.” Edmonton Journal

“Vancouver writer Timothy Taylor takes a meat cleaver to mystery fiction by packing the novel with backroom culinary politics, a heartwarming tale about a father-son reconciliation and some moralizing on the outrage we should feel about the wastefulness of bourgeois society. What it all simmers down to is a frothy entertainment with a dash of piquancy…it is a well-calculated piece of fiction…with just the right amount of angst and social conscience.” Montreal Gazette

“A charming first novel…unflaggingly intelligent. Taylor is one of the most graceful young stylists around.” Maclean’s

“Your mouth waters as you read Timothy Taylor’s first novel. Not since Isak Dinesen’s Babette’s Feast has so lavish a table been set for a reader. If Margaret Atwood’s first novel The Edible Woman put you off food, this one will put you back on it…In Stanley Park he does for the restaurant business what John le Carré does for spying; he makes it alluring. And he does for food what Patrick Suskind does for perfume; he makes it exciting…Timothy Taylor has written a novel with a plot to return to, characters to remain with, and themes to think about. The quest for authenticity, for instance, isn’t an easy one, either for fictional characters or real people. His style skips along merrily…He also casually slips in some of the most mouth-watering recipes ever sprinkled on the pages of Canadian fiction.” National Post 

“Extraordinarily creative . . . Taylor may be on his way to becoming the head chef of Canadian Letters.” Winnipeg Free Press