Sensational Victoria: Bright lights, Red Lights, Murders, Ghosts and Gardens
By Eve Lazarus
Anvil, 160 pages, $24
Dave Obee
This has already been a stellar year for books about local history. If you’re still looking for a gift, there are more than a dozen top-quality choices on the shelves, from books on Victoria City Hall and the University of Victoria to ones on the Japanese community and Government Street.
This late arrival, Sensational Victoria, is one of the year’s best.
Eve Lazarus is not one of us — she is from Vancouver and the author of a book on heritage houses there. She is a keen researcher of houses and their genealogies, and we should be grateful that she turned her attention to Greater Victoria.
Using geography as a guide, she tells of dozens of interesting characters who have made this area so fascinating. Since the book is made up of short stories, you can dip in here and there as the mood hits, or read it cover to cover.
Of course, you’ll need to get past the title, which suggests something other than what the book delivers. Victoria is interesting, and richly diverse, but it’s not quite as sensational as one might be led to believe.
And besides, Lazarus does not sensationalize her stories; she captures and holds our attention with rich writing.
No book such as this would be complete without references to the usual suspects — Emily Carr, Francis Rattenbury and the like. One of the challenges in writing about history is finding the balance of well-known and under-reported.
Lazarus handles that challenge deftly. The obvious stories are handled quite briefly, acknowledging that they have a place in our history, but not wasting valuable space with simple retellings.
She pays more attention to the houses and people that are lesser known. And that’s good, because it ensures that all readers will find something worthwhile.
Lazarus takes us, for example, to the Rockland home of bookseller Jim Munro and artist Carole Sabiston, the Rogers Avenue home of journalist Bruce Hutchison and the Oak Bay home of artist Pat Martin Bates.
We are also taken to buildings with, we’re told, ghosts — including the Fireside Grill in Saanich, the Kildonan mansion on Foul Bay Road and Dingle House on Gorge Road East.
The book is divided into 10 chapters based on themes, which means the houses and other buildings mentioned are not in geographic order. The system works.
The topics range from the expected — downtown buildings and heritage gardens, for example — to the more exciting (yes, almost sensational) — the red-light district and the sites of murders.
Dozens of archival and modern photographs of the people and the buildings help to bring the stories to life.
It’s a great presentation that helps make the book a success.
That’s not to say that Sensational Victoria is perfect; it’s not. A couple of the names are suspect, for one thing. And more maps would have helped readers visualize where some of these hidden gems may be found.
But those are niggling details. This book is a great addition to any shelf of local history. It really doesn’t matter what level of knowledge the reader has; there is something here for everyone.
The reviewer is the editor in chief of the Times Colonist, and author of The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia.