Getting Away From the Roots of Some Really Harsh Kitchens with Timothy Taylor and His New Book - The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf

Track & Food Podcast

"If you've ever dreamed of moving to Europe to cook and learn from the best, then The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf might feel familiar. The new novel from Vancouver author (-slash-journalist-slash-UBC-Professor-of-Creative-Writing) Timothy Taylor follows the life of Teo, an inexperienced kid from Vancouver pursuing his culinary fantasy in Paris. There, he meets Frankie, a confident Quebecois who chances to show Teo the ropes in the kitchen. Through the day-to-day grind and late night struggles, Taylor's protagonist slowly emerges as a competent chef, eventually returning home to Vancouver to begin his own restaurant empire.
The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf explores the many challenges of restaurant life - from the long hours spent in the kitchen to the resultant personal tolls outside of it. At the heart of it all is Taylor's ability to capture the humanity of his characters as they search for meaning in such a notoriously exacting industry. In this conversation with Taylor - an avid eater and once occasional food writer, himself - he shares the thoughts and ideas driving his latest literary invention."
Timothy Taylor is a bestselling and award winning author of six book-length works of fiction and nonfiction. He emerged on the writing scene in 2000, when three of his short stories were selected for a single edition of the Journey Prize Anthology. His story Doves of Townsend won the Journey Prize that same year and was included in his collection of short fiction Silent Cruise, which was itself later named runner-up to the Danuta Gleed Award. Taylor’s first novel Stanley Park was released to critical acclaim in 2001 and was nominated for a Giller Prize, a Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize as well as both a Vancouver and BC Book Award. His 2011 novel, The Blue Light Project, was a bestseller in Canada and went on to win the CBC Bookie Prize in fiction. His most recent novel is The Rule of Stephens and was released in 2017.

Taylor has also been a prolific journalist and creative nonfiction writer over this same period. He has published hundreds of feature articles in the past 15 years in such publications as The New York Times, EnRoute, Walrus, 18 Bridges, The Report on Business Magazine, Hakai and many others. He has won or been nominated for over two dozen magazine awards, been widely anthologized, and seen his work appear in both the US and France. His most recent nonfiction book, published by Nonvella in Vancouver, is Foodville, a food memoire and meditation on foodie obsessions in western consumer culture. In addition to his writing and teaching at UBC, Taylor travels widely, having in recent years spent time on assignment in China, Tibet, Japan, Dubai, Brazil, the Canadian arctic and other places. He lives in Point Grey Vancouver with his wife, his son, and a Brittany Spaniel named Keaton.