Jake's life is shaped by the Spanish Civil War and the not-so-civil wars that go on within families and intimate relationships.

With engaging wit and originality, David Spaner does for Vancouver what writers like Mordecai Richler and Philip Roth did for Montreal and Newark. Jake Feldman grows up on Keefer Street in the dynamic working-class immigrant neighbourhood of Strathcona in Vancouver. While other cities have ethnic neighbourhoods, in the 1930s Strathcona was a "neighbourhood of ethnic neighbourhoods" including Jewish, Italian and Asian communities. This is the first novel to bring to life the vibrancy of Strathcona and its largely Jewish Keefer Street.

Jake's left-wing, rabble-rousing street politics of his youth eventually lead him to leave Depression-era Vancouver to join the international volunteers fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. But his return home is unheralded and his idealism is worn down by the mundaneness of everyday life and family conflict.

Fifty years later, he recaptures the passion of his youth during a reunion of civil war volunteers in Spain. Keefer Street explores how to preserve your idealism in order to live a life of purpose.

David Spaner has been a feature writer, movie critic, reporter, and editor for numerous newspapers and magazines. Born in Toronto and raised in B.C., David is a graduate of Simon Fraser University and Langara College. He’s also been a cultural/political organizer (Yippie and manager of the legendary punk band The Subhumans). David is the author of Dreaming in the Rain: How Vancouver Became Hollywood North By Northwest and Shoot It! Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film. His most recent book, Solidarity: Canada’s Unknown Revolution of 1983, was nominated for the George Ryga Prize for Social Awareness in Literature.

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“This critical moment in twentieth-century fascist history should be required reading for any person troubled by our world right now. In hard-boiled prose, David Spaner has rendered a heartbreaking, sometimes wry, and deeply moving novel about regular citizens who courageously chose to step up in defence of freedom and the consequences of that choice.” - Maureen Medved, author of Black Star and The Tracey Fragments

“This is the very best of Jewish-related Spanish Civil War novels that I’ve ever seen. Everything in the novel is handled beautifully. My favourite left-wing novel of the year!” - Paul Buhle, co-editor of Brigadistas: An American Anti-Fascist in the Spanish Civil War

“Reading David Spaner’s novel about Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil War is an exciting way to learn about that bloody prelude to the Second World War. The book is recommended reading for anyone who was part of the left in the 1960s or wants to learn more about it. It should also become a textbook for high school history classes in need of a dose of truth about Canada’s role in a conflict that still puzzles and fascinates the world.” – Ron Verzuh, BC Review

“Lively and penetrating.” - Tom Wayman, author of If You’re Not Free at Work, Where Are You Free?: Literature and Social Change

“David Spaner knows the history he writes about. A welcome addition to the field of Canadian fiction.” - Jonah Raskin, author of Beat Blues: San Francisco, 1955