Why a Booktrail?
Future: A topic that had a spooky prescience in the real life SARS case but the fictional one is a wild and scary ride through Toronto’s streets
Headhunter
What you need to know before your trail
A tale of a near-future dystopian Toronto afflicted by a frightening bird flu known as sturnusemia. The novel diagnoses not individual patients but a whole city. Prescient, isn’t it?
A decade after Headhunter was published, Toronto was rocked by a contained outbreak of SARS in real life…
Dr. Rupert Kurtz, Director of the Parkin Institute of Psychiatric Research simultaneously diagnoses and encourages the “death-urge” sweeping the city.
Meanwhile, starlings, the alleged carriers of sturnusemia (an AIDS-like virus), are being gassed by squads in city parks, but the birds are not the biggest threat to the city. Rather, Kurtz himself seems to be the danger at the centre of it all..
Travel Guide
A topic that had a spooky prescience in the real life SARS case but the fictional one is a wild and scary ride through Toronto’s streets
Kurtz becomes head of the Parkin Psychiatric Institute which is apparently based on the real Clark Institute of Psychiatry on St Clair Avenue west – just as a building not for what goes on obviously.
Rosedale and the dystopian streets of Toronto…you’ll never forget this trail around the city!
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Headhunter
Author/Guide: Timothy Findlay Destination: Toronto Departure Time: Future
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