![]() ![]() To the west, the bus through sleepy suburbs, an escape from the city's perceived seaminess. ![]() To the east, the streetcar, the bright lights and hubbub of downtown. Until the construction of Toronto's second subway line in the late 1960s, the western terminus of the Bloor streetcar at Jane Street marked a psychological border. As Lily considers her childhood friend from the distance of five decades, this remarkably sure-footed debut novel becomes a study of the depths and loss of female friendship. Lily is an observant child, a stranger fascinated by the Trenthams' artistic milieu, but The Strays, which won the Stella Prize when originally published in Australia, is more than a period piece. But when a rift develops in the volatile community of painters, Lily and Eva are on either side of a widening chasm. The Trenthams' laissez-faire child-rearing allows Lily to slip easily into the family. Indeed, when Eva takes her home, Lily is charmed by the bohemian vivacity of the entire Trentham household: avant-garde painter Evan, heiress Helena, their other two daughters and their growing community of "strays" – painters taking harbour from 1930s Australia's stifling cultural conservatism. On her first day at a new school, her working-class parents having recently moved due to the Depression, eight-year-old Lily is besotted by classmate Eva. ![]()
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