A fascinating, well-researched tale of 21st-century urbanism set in Toronto.
Cohen’s debut nonfiction work chronicles a Toronto housing project’s makeover.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Cabbagetown South was home to some of Toronto’s poorest slums. In the 1940s, these slums were razed and replaced by a 69-acre public housing complex named Regent Park. The crime and poverty that afflicted the original site soon came to affect the new housing project, and in the early 21st century, a new plan was created to redevelop Regent Park as a mixed-use, mixed-income community. Cohen, a real estate developer and musician, was part of the team tasked with reenvisioning the neighborhood in a way that would work for both newcomers and long-time residents—who, temporarily displaced by the plan, were promised the right to return. “There were moments when we had no idea where the music would take us,” writes Cohen. “There were others in which the notes resonated in perfect harmony, reflecting hope, potential, and personal growth. Darker tones often took centre stage, reflecting anger, resentment, and a deep sadness for what had been lost.” This book records Cohen’s memories of the project, which spanned 18 years and three phases of revitalization. From creating pedestrian-friendly streets and new green spaces to fostering new economic and cultural energy, all while collaborating with residents and preserving the century-old history of the neighborhood, Cohen and his colleagues had their work cut out for them. The author writes in bubbly, problem-solving prose, outlining the peculiar challenges of designing a neighborhood to meet the needs of its many residents. Here, he describes when two locals wanted to start a cricket team. “There was, however, one small problem: there was no place to play cricket in Regent Park. Their practices and games were in eastern Scarborough—three bus and streetcar transfers away.” (Athletic fields were eventually installed.) Fans of urban planning and social housing policy will particularly enjoy this work, which includes many wonderful architectural illustrations and photographs. Given the length and the success of the project, this accessible in-depth account of how it came about is a great resource.
A fascinating, well-researched tale of 21st-century urbanism set in Toronto.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781774585054
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Page Two
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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