The Peanut Factory

Young David Wildwood finds himself in Toronto unemployed and out of luck. He hitches a ride with a couple of ageing socialist intellectuals and ends up on the west coast where his luck begins to turn.

This gritty and unique coming of age story arcs through the Dickensian world of new age labourers engaged in converting Vancouver’s skid row into what will emerge as trendy Gastown. 

The author skillfully weaves a tale that captures the passions and politics of the late 1960's while simultaneously engaging us in the growing pains of a young man caught in a web of drug dealers, draft dodgers, love, loss and violence.

The Peanut Factory is a beautifully rendered story of a young man coming awake to himself and the world of possibility around him. PD Speers, a novelist with the heart of a poet, luminously describes a city on the verge of social explosion and one man’s attempt to find his way through its myriad of lane-ways and alleys. An Excellent read. 

Juan Barker, Abraxas Books