Where in Canada: Vancouver Confidential by John Belshaw
Vancouver Confidential dives into the raw urban culture of a port city in the mid-twentieth century. These were the years when Hastings and Main was still a dynamic commercial and entertainment hub, when streetcars thrummed through the city, and when “theatre” meant vaudeville and burlesque.
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What:Vancouver Confidential (Anvil Press, 2014)Who:John Belshaw is a historian, writer, consultant, online university professor, and a runner. He is the author and co-author of several books and articles on Canadian history, including Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960. Belshaw is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.Vancouver Confidential contributors include:John Belshaw, Tom Carter, Jason Vanderhill, Terry Watada, James C. Johnstone, Eve Lazarus, Stevie Wilson, Lani Russwurm, Rosanne Amosovs Sia, Catherine Rose, Will Woods, Aaron Chapman, Diane Purvey, Jesse Donaldson.Where in Canada:Vancouver Confidential dives into the raw urban culture of a port city in the mid-twentieth century. These were the years when Hastings and Main was still a dynamic commercial and entertainment hub, when streetcars thrummed through the city, and when “theatre” meant vaudeville and burlesque.Dedicated “to the people of Vancouver whose stories remain to be told,” the essays and art collected in Vancouver Confidential illuminate aspects of a city that was too busy getting into trouble to worry about whether it was “world class.”From Tom Carter’s “Night Club Czars of Vancouver the Death of Vaudeville,” to Lani Russwurm’s “Red Shadows: A Spy’s Eye View of Vancouver in the Depression,” Vancouver Confidential dives into the city’s best-kept secrets: street gambling and brothels, bootleggers and loggers, the victim in the murder, the teens in the gang, and the ‘slum’ in the path of the bulldozer. Vancouver Confidential shines a light on the lives of Vancouverites that have for so long been ignored.
