This is on the list to re-read. A history of Toronto as told by a man who suffers his life's connections. A man's collection of historic photographic plates of early Toronto are lost at the bottom of the bay. (Maybe.) Redhill's implications on relationships, longing and loss speak to me in unspeakable ways. ( )

This was a really enjoyable read; a story of early Toronto (1850ish if I remember correctly) intertwined a story of another Toronto family in 1997. Each half of the story has a pretty similar weighting and I didn't mind switching between the two because it didn't happen too often and both halves were entertaining and written in similar styles. The modern day story is woven around the death of David Hollis, a historical researcher, and the historical story meets up with his research in a way that's not too obvious but such that we're recognisably reading one story rather than two. The characters were the best aspect of the writing and felt like real people: not always consistent, not always nice, not always understanding what their actions would mean, but not completely ignorant of this either. However for a story that is very much about a place the location didn't really come alive to me except in a few passages in the historical story. I liked the fact that the story involved early photography though and these bits of the story worked very well, especially as some old photographs are included in the book. I'm not sure if I think it's Booker prize winning material, or even shortlist material - although it's a weighty book it was a quick read and didn't seem terribly substantial. Definitely a good read though.

http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/consolation-michael-redhill/ ( )

This book tells the connected stories of the Hollis family (1997) and Jem Hallam (1857). It also tells the early history of the city of Toronto.

David Hollis is a historian/geographer interested in Toronto's early development. He has ALS and commits suicide early in the book, leaving behind a firm conviction that a pictoral history of Toronto has been created and preserved in a shipwreck -- with the ship buried beneath what is now prime lake front realty. His wife and daughters are dealing with David's death, and the fiance of the elder daughter, who was especially close to David, is dealing with his own feelings and his seeming inability to console his fiance or her mother.

Jem Hallam arrives in Toronto in the 1850s to begin work as a chemist (pharmacist) and save enough money to bring his wife and daughters to Toronto. He fails in that effort, but creates a new career (photography) and quasi-family for himself by joining forces with two other people struggling on their own in the new city.

This is a well written book that explores both social issues (historical preservation vs. development, poverty) and personal struggles such as dealing with loss and failure.

Both of the stories, told in alternating sections, are compelling and they come together in a surprising way -- making the last part of the book my favourite part of all. ( )

Michael Redhill’s novel Consolation is a book with several faces. It is a miniature history of the city of Toronto, a mystery of the non-murder sort, and a touching character study that focuses on the attempts of two groups of people, separated by more than a century, who are forced to deal with life’s adversities when they least expected to have to do so.

David Hollis is a university historian, a late twentieth century man obsessed by his city’s history and the people who lived in it before him. He has become convinced that a complete set of the earliest photographs ever taken of the city of Toronto was lost in a storm just offshore and that they are now buried under streets built on reclaimed land that was once part of Lake Ontario. He has dedicated his life to identifying the Toronto of the 1850s that is hidden by the Toronto of today, but when he finds that he has Lou Gering’s disease he knows that he has little time left to convince anyone of authority to help him find the lost photographic plates.

Jem Hallam is newly arrived in the Toronto of 1855, sent to the city from London to start a new pharmacy at the direction of his father. Hallam left behind a wife and two daughters, hoping that they would join him in Toronto as soon as the business began to show a profit. Things do not go well for Jem Hallam and, although he is never seems quite sure how it all happened, he eventually finds himself in the photography trade and living with a dying photographer and a woman he took into his life in order to save her from a sure death on the streets of the city.

In alternating segments, the reader is able to follow both the efforts of David Hollis to identify the possible location of the missing plates and the evolution of Jem Hallam from failed pharmacist to successful photographer. Hollis, becoming more and more helpless at the hands of the cruel disease he suffered, and finding little support in his quest from colleagues, decided to end his life. It is left up to his wife and his daughter and her fiancé to try to salvage his reputation as they try to stop the construction of a new sports facility on the very spot identified by Hollis as likely to be the final resting place of this important record of Toronto’s early history.

Redhill seamlessly moves back and forth between the stories of these two men whose lives have become intertwined despite the fact that they lived more than a century apart. Jem Hallam, forced to fight for his survival in a manner he had no way to foresee when he arrived in Toronto, and feeling guilty for carving out a new life for himself with strangers while abandoning his wife and daughters in London to the care of his father, eventually produces the photos that David Hollis will so desperately search for in the future. Or did he? That’s where the mystery begins.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )