Life in the City of Dirty Water

[❀ Susan]

a place to discuss this book

[Heather(Gibby)]

I am getting close to the end of this book.

Each section deals with a different aspect in his life-so it doesn't flow chronologically, but flips around in time. The book flowed better once I understood how it was organized,

I live in the the "City of Dirty Water" and worked in social services for my career so the organizations and many of the people talked about were very familiar to me. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me to see how many of the organizations I was involved in had helped/failed the author.

There are so many important issues discussed in this book, I really hope it does well at Canada Reads.

[Joanna G]

Very interesting that you knew a lot of the organizations, Heather. I think that would have helped a lot, because I feel like to me, the book was pretty shallow. It just skimmed through a lot, both in terms of his personal journey and his career path and I never got a strong sense of any of the organizations as distinct entities.

I also was, I think, a little misled by the subtitle. He calls it a journey of healing, but then basically talks about deciding to leave the gang that he was involved with, being able to do so because of his family, and then he says he had some setbacks but was on his way. But we didn't hear about the setbacks or the challenges. Just overall, I felt that there was less than I was expecting in this one.

[❀ Susan]

This is my last book for this year's Canada Reads and I have to admit that I am having trouble sticking with it. At first it seemed like a stream of consciousness and I found it difficult to follow and now I am needing to take breaks... perhaps it is time to get to bed and pick it up with fresh eyes tomorrow!

[Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺]

I just finished this one and it was a disappointment to be honest. The narrative is all over the place. It reads more like the spewing of facts than a memoir.

[Allison]

I have about 50 pages to go. I think I'd like hanging out with Clayton - seems like an interesting person to talk to, and lots of engagement I could learn from - but agree that it's the writing that kind of pulls this book down the list for me. It's quite choppy and abrupt in its changes. One minute you're in the the Sundance Festival, and literally one second later you're 15 years earlier in a home in Winnipeg. It's more like a chat than a book to me.

However, I'm quite excited to hear Suzanne Simard defend it! She's also very engaging and I love listening to her speak and share her knowledge. I think this is a bonus to this book being on the list.

[Allison]

On page 201 he states this his son’s birthday is on June 31.

Is this a typo? I wondered if it was a political statement, such as rejecting July 1 as a colonial holiday. But then he states that the whole country celebrates the next day…
Is this just a typo?

[Susan]

I noticed that too. It’s an error that should have been caught in editing. There was another blooper that should have been caught earlier in the book where he confuses the two President Bushes (George H.W. is used when it should have been George W.).

[❀ Susan]

still struggling through this one... just past the Sundance festival.

@Allison, I am looking forward to hearing Simard defend as well. I feel like I almost "know" her after finishing her book!

[Allison]

I finished.

This is one of the few books that I'm not going to leave a review for, and even fewer books that I'm not even going to rate.

I can't quite get my head straight about how I feel.