​Treasa Levasseur on two fictional portraits of Hamilton, Ontario

Treasa Levasseur is a musician who's logged a lot of miles on the road. In her Road Trip column on The Next Chapter, she matches up Canadian cities and towns with books that expand her view of that place. In this instalment of Road Trip, Levasseur stays closer to home, talking about two books that have expanded her understanding of her adopted hometown of Hamilton, Ontario.

Exposing the downtown Hamilton underworld

What We Salvage by David Baille takes place in the '80s, which was kind of a dark time in the core of downtown Hamilton. We follow a young, nameless narrator through his trials and tribulations in the "boot culture" of that time, which was like the mods and the punks and the skinheads. It's a violent, dark, impressionistic, philosophical, poetic coming-of-age novel. It takes a while to get into it, but once you're in, it's like you're in a dreamscape. You're following these narrative threads, and you're not really sure where you're going to wind up. It paints a picture of Hamilton that's very stark. The downtown core is full of young, disaffected, unhomed youth, and homeless men, and authorities like police officers. I recognized the Hamilton I know, but I also did not recognize the Hamilton that my beautiful, ambitious city has become since people started migrating there.

Family drama in Depression-era Hamilton 

The ​Fishers of Paradise by Rachael Preston couldn't be more different. It takes place in the '30s in Cootes Paradise, which is a beautiful part of Hamilton's shoreline. It's one of the most protected parts of the shore of Lake Ontario, and it's really a lovely nature walk retreat that I highly recommend to everyone. This book is set during the Depression, and at that time many people who were experiencing being unhomed due to marginalization and poverty lived in houseboats in this part of Burlington Bay. We follow a young woman named Egypt Fisher who is studying to become a teacher. She lives with her family in this houseboat, and her father had gone away but he returns and there's all kinds of family drama around this. 

Treasa Levasseur's comments have been edited and condensed.