Down to This (Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown)

For some young men, climbing Everest or sailing solo into polar seas isn’t the biggest risk in the world. Instead it is venturing alone into the deepest urban jungle, where human nature is the dangerous, incomprehensible and sometimes wildly uplifting force that tests not only your ability to survive but also your own humanity.

One cold November day, Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall heads out on just such a quest. He packs up a new tent, some clothes, his notebooks and a pen and goes to live in Tent City, twenty-seven lawless acres where the largest hobo town on the continent squats in the scandalized shadow of Canada’s largest city. The rules he sets for himself are simple: no access to money, family or friends, except what he can find from that day on. He’ll do whatever people in Tent City do to get by, be whatever bum, wino, beggar, hustler, criminal, junkie or con man he chooses to be on any given day.

When he arrives, he finds a dump full of the castaways of the last millennium, human and otherwise. On the edge of the world, yet somehow smack in the middle of it all, fugitives, drug addicts, prostitutes, dealers and ex-cons have created an anarchic society, where the rules are made up nightly and your life depends on knowing them. Not only does Bishop-Stall manage to survive until the bulldozers come, but against all odds his own heart and spirit slowly mend. An astonishing account of birth, suicide, brawls, binges, tears, crazed laughter, good and bad intentions, fiendish charity and the sudden eloquence and generosity of broken souls, Down to This is Bishop-Stall’s iridescent love song to a lost city like no other.


From the Hardcover edition.

This book title, Down to This (Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown), ISBN: 9780679312284, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, published by Random House of Canada (March 8, 2005) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.

Unlike Amazon and other retailers who may also offer Down to This (Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown) books on their website, we specialize in large quantities and provide personal service, from trusted, experienced, friendly people in Portland, Oregon. We offer a Price Match Guarantee, and QuickQuote form, to make purchasing quick and easy.

Prefer to work with a human being when you order Down to This (Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown) books in bulk? Our Book Specialists are standing by Monday-Friday 8-5 PST, ready to help!