“There is no doubt that Cabbagetown was a tough place to grow up. People there always said that if you managed to survive your youth, you would grow up to become either a priest or an axe murderer.”

Cabbagetown, a neighbourhood in central Toronto, has now been gentrified, but it was once the city’s—and maybe even Canada’s—largest slum. Named for the cabbage which was grown by Irish immigrants in their tiny front gardens, the area once consisted of dilapidated row houses—little more than shacks really—along narrow, potholed streets. In the post-war years, it was packed to the gills with immigrants from all over Europe, many of them Eastern-European refugees, but mostly Italians and Irish.

Terry Burke, seven of his eight siblings, and his parents came to live there in 1959, having emigrated from Ireland when Terry was twelve. Before the move to Canada, the Burkes had resided in a slum south of the Liffey. Terry’s father, “Da”, had no end of trouble finding work in Dublin. The family lived from hand to mouth on what he could bring home as a day labourer on the docks. Da had served during World War II and had contracted malaria in the East. Once home, he experienced serious flares of the condition and often ended up in hospital. Terry’s mother, “Mamie”, was almost perpetually pregnant. She’d bear a total of eleven children, two of whom would die very young. Worn down by childcare and the strain of trying to make ends meet, she had a heart attack in her thirties. Rosaleen, the eldest child and a gifted student, had to leave school early to assist with running the household.

Things were, of course, supposed to improve in Canada. Certainly, there were more employment opportunities, but the pay was poor and the family was already in considerable debt. It took them two years to pay for the airplane flight alone. Social services for immigrants were nonexistent.

Burke’s memoir brings his family and the 1960s Toronto neighbourhood they lived in to life. Written in clear, unpretentious prose, the book focuses on the many financial and material challenges the family and a few of Terry’s boyhood friends faced. Burke is a fine storyteller and I found the tales of his childhood—including scrapes, brushes with the law, and his Catholic schooling—absorbing and affecting. Of central importance to his narrative is the very strained relationship he had with his father. Da could not abide lies of any variety, especially to Mamie. He’d pummel Terry to within an inch of his life for even minor infractions. Mamie or another family member almost always had to intervene to put a stop to the violent corporal punishment meted out to Terry. It is unclear why Da took so vehemently against the boy. The author stresses that many of the nuns and priests who schooled him—particularly in Ireland—were abusive. (He experienced night terrors because of them and wonders if any of these educators ever experienced remorse or acknowledged in the confession box the degree to which they’d terrorized their charges.) It seems possible that Da’s behaviour reflected his own severe Catholic-school upbringing.

The tragedy that struck the Burkes in 1962, when Terry was around fifteen, only made matters worse between father and son. The boy was kicked out of the house at sixteen and ended up “lost” on the Cabbagetown streets for months—a harrowing experience.

Though Lost in Cabbagetown contains its share of hardship and sadness, it is not essentially a misery memoir. The author’s touch is relatively light and there is considerable warmth to be found in the book. Endurance, love, and loyalty, too. I do wish, however, that I’d been able to learn a little more about the early lives of the author’s parents.

I am grateful to Dundurn Press and Net Galley for providing me with an advanced review copy, which I compared with a final e-book edition from my local public library. Looking at the latter, I do wish the book had received more meticulous proofreading. There were a number of careless and distracting typos.

It made me think of Angela's Ashes and I appreciated the style of writing and how the author describe the different relationships and his own family.
It's well written and it's a poignant story.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Young Terry and his family (his mother, father and eight siblings) moved to Toronto in the late 1950s from Ireland, hoping for a better life. Alas, that's not what they found. At that time, their neighbourhood in Cabbagetown, which was made up of mostly immigrants, was run down and everyone was in the same situation. Money and work was hard to come by and their father worked when he could find it. Their mother held everything together at home.

There was no extra money for anything so if Terry wanted to go see a movie or grab a bite to eat with friends, he had to get creative by collecting pop bottles, helping women home with their groceries and hoping for a tip, fetching food for drunks coming out of tavern and getting to keep the change, and more. He and his siblings were sent to Catholic schools where the priests and nuns had no hesitation to keep students in line with a strap or ruler.

Terry didn't get along with his father and left home at age 15. He had to find a job and a place to live but without a driver's license that was difficult. He did what he could to survive but then things took drastic turn and everything seemed to be hopeless.

What attracted me to this book is that it is a true story set in Toronto. I liked the writing style and and the honesty. Despite the hard times, the love for his mother and siblings was always there ... they may not have had much but they had each other. I'm glad things worked out for him.

This was such a good read! I highly recommend to memoir and historical fiction fans! This was a great ARC read from Netgalley and Dundurn press!