Bottom Bracket

Vivian Meyer writes from experience. Her life work is in an alternative school in downtown Toronto...Kensington Market as depicted in the novel is her own home neighbourhood.

Abby Faria is a college graduate with an upscale mom. But she is living in Kensington Market in inner-city Toronto. She works as a bike courier... a murder occurs almost on her doorstep...

Bottom Bracket is a compelling first novel, written with sensitivity and a matter-of-fact vision about the nature of poverty and the drug world. Abby Faria is a delightful heroine who stands still for no one and has a heart of gold. She is an obvious favourite within the confines of her world, and even her mother can't be angry at her. She is intelligent and hip, and her world quickly becomes the reader's as Meyer carefully leads us through Kensington Markets inhabitants, who form a funky co-op in watching out for one another.

Plot and action co-exist with Abby's thoughts as she races her way through her obligations and the realization that she is acting mostly alone. Abby steals our heats as she solves the murder; helps her friends; and even befriends one of the villains. An excellent first effort!

At first glance I dismissed the mystery novel. But when I found out it was set in Toronto's Kensington Market involving hipsters I couldn't resist. Bottom Bracket has a lot of pleasant moments: the plot twist, the undercover sleuthing, her bike couriering adventures and of course the Market. The colours and flavours of the market: as Meyer describes is there to a tee. Bottom Bracket is a fair debut novel that gives you more insight into the bike culture in Toronto.

Toronto's Kensington Market hosts fast-paced intrigue in Vivian Meyer's highly readable new mystery novel, Bottom Bracket. The double meaning of 'bottom bracket' (the lowest socio-economic echelon and the axle casing on a bicycle) comes vividly o life in Abigail Faria, a bike courier whose curiosity about a local murder brings her into contact with good and bad cops, corrupt developers, and friends whose underworld and upper-class connections, computer hacking skills, excellent coffee, and local solidarity combine to uncover dark deeds and bring their doers to a uniquely Kensington Market style of justice.

Bottom Bracket is an essential Toronto read. Deft and confidently written it is an important addition to the city's literature because it inverts gender and class dynamics and narrates the bottom bracket as having the capacity to harness the resources of the wealthy and powerful to their own ends, for a change.

This is a charming debut novel by Meyer, a teacher at a Toronto alternative school who lives in Kensington Market, that jewel of the city centre where you can get Nicaraguan coffee, Mexican pupusas, some of the best Quebec artisan cheeses, superb bread to serve it on and some exception vintage clothing to wear while serving it. Meyer managers to bring all that atmosphere into her story of murder and escape.

Abby Feria is a bicycle courier, a true free spirit. She's the thirty-something daughter of activists who fought the Toronto development wars, chaining themselves to buildings, ripping down hoardings. Now, her dad is out west sabotaging trees slated for the lumber trade and her mother has moved uptown so she's closer to her new processes for finding herself.

When a local drug dealer and pimp is killed near Feria's home, she's interested but not involved. Not, that is, until she finds a terrified young woman named Anita out in the alley, and it's clear Anita knows all about the murder. Even Abby doesn't know her reasons for hiding Anita, but she does, and that makes her part of the case. Also, her history, and that of her parents, are about to emerge as evidence.

Meyer makes a few first-novel bobbles. She rushes the plot and doesn't really make some aspects of the characters clear, but this is a solid debut. We expect Abby to peddle back in an even better book.

Imagining Toronto

The familiar setting of Toronto's Kensington Market hosts fast paced intrigue in Vivian Meyer's highly readable new mystery novel, Bottom Bracket (just released by Sumach Press, 2006). In Meyer's novel, the double meaning of 'bottom bracket' (referring to the lowest socio-economic echelon as well as to the axle and bearing casing on a bicycle) comes vividly to life in the person of Abigail Faria, a bike courier and advocate of the dispossessed whose curiosity about a violent death in the Market brings her into contact with a heroin-addicted hooker and her murdered pimp, good and bad cops, corrupt developers, and an eclectic assortment of Kensington Market characters whose underworld and upper class connections, computer hacking skills, excellent coffee, and local solidarity combine to uncover dark deeds and bring their doers to a uniquely Kensington Market justice.

Abigail Faria isn't your usual sleuth. She's a hard-riding thirty-something bicycle courier with an appetite for good food and generous lawyers. Her tiny Kensington Market flat has a room reserved for her collection of ten bikes, including lovingly restored antiques and a $6000 road bike she's still paying for. Similarly, Bottom Bracket isn't your usual mystery novel. Vivian Meyer deftly turns the conventions of the genre on their head, inverting gender and class dynamics and narrating the bottom bracket as having the capacity to harness the resources of the wealthy and powerful to their own ends for a changes.

Bottom Bracket offers a sensitive portrayal of a corner of the city's underclass and narrates its members as capable and multifaceted. A highly engaging read and a welcome addition to the city's literature.