Keefer Street

"Required reading for any person troubled by our world right now." - Maureen Medved

Jake's life is shaped by the Spanish Civil War and the not-so-civil wars that go on within families and intimate relationships.

With engaging wit and originality, David Spaner does for Vancouver what writers like Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth did for Montreal and Newark. Jake Feldman grows up on Keefer Street in the dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver. This is the first novel to bring to life the vibrancy of Strathcona and its largely Jewish Keefer Street.

Jake's left-wing, rabble-rousing street politics of his youth eventually lead him to leave Depression-era Vancouver to join the international volunteers fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But his return home is unheralded and his idealism is worn down by the mundaneness of everyday life and family conflict.

Fifty years later, he recaptures the passion of his youth during a reunion of civil war volunteers in Spain. Keefer Street explores how to preserve your idealism in order to live a life of purpose.

David Spaner has been a feature writer, movie critic, reporter, and editor for numerous newspapers and magazines. Born in Toronto and raised in B.C., David is a graduate of Simon Fraser University and Langara College. He's also been a cultural/political organizer (Yippie and manager of the legendary punk band The Subhumans). David is the author of Dreaming in the Rain: How Vancouver Became Hollywood North By Northwest and Shoot It! Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film. His most recent book, Solidarity: Canada's Unknown Revolution of 1983, was nominated for the George Ryga Prize for Social Awareness in Literature.

ISBN: 9781553807209
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312
Publisher: Ronsdale Press
Published: November 08, 2024

Nominated for the George Ryga Prize for Social Awareness in Literature

Nominated for the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards for Fiction

"This critical moment in twentieth-century fascist history should be required reading for any person troubled by our world right now. In hard-boiled prose, David Spaner has rendered a heartbreaking, sometimes wry, and deeply moving novel about regular citizens who courageously chose to step up in defence of freedom and the consequences of that choice." - Maureen Medved, author of Black Star and The Tracey Fragments

"Spaner has a gift for characterization and dialogue and creates a whole world of believable characters and interpersonal drama. Highly recommended." – Vancouver Sun

"This is the very best of Jewish-related Spanish Civil War novels that I've ever seen. Everything in the novel is handled beautifully. My favorite left-wing novel of the year!" - Paul Buhle, co-editor of Brigadistas an American Anti-Fascist in the Spanish Civil War