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Gently Down the Stream

Like its first-person narrator, Hank, Ray Robertson's Gently Down the Stream is somewhat aimless, a meandering walk down Toronto streets, across its parks, into its record shops, bars, and apartments. Hank's life is captured perfectly in the title of the book, as he seemingly floats through all the relationships of his life: parents, lover, friends, co-workers, and shopkeepers. Hank's saving graces are his love for Mary, who is relatively steady, sane and gainfully employed, and their love of Barry, their old black Labrador retriever. A former student of philosophy and a frustrated writer, Hank, who has a heart of gold and a brain of lead, is his own worst enemy. When Mary goes into a dead-of-winter funk, he is truly anchorless and almost blows the best thing he ever had on the eve of their move from a basement apartment into their first house.

Along with intimate details of living with the animal, Robertson gives us an encyclopedic overview of classic rock music, Hank's only true passion (other than Mary and Barry). When a job as doorman at a karaoke bar falls into his lap, he becomes the resident expert on the Doors, singing one of their songs each night. The writing throughout is fluid, the characters have the feel of true urban malaise and a turn-of-millennium angst, and Robertson manages to save an essentially directionless story with humour and sharp dialogue. Babies in carriages are "like little popes in their little popemobiles going for fresh-air rides," and the sound of a couple of friends kissing is like "a toothless man dying of thirst.". The closely perceived details of Hank's world somehow keep him (and this novel) afloat. — Mark Frutkin

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 320
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781896951676
  • Genres
  • canada, fiction
  • Release date
  • 2005