Off the Tracks

"Why would a decent sort like you want to live in this neighbourhood? You know this is the South End? Wrong side of the tracks."With these words, a Nanaimo taxi driver delivered Diane Foley to her new home in 1994. In pursuit of an enterprising beau with a handful of dubious South End rental properties, Diane truly "finds herself" in the life-changing new experience of running Big Sab, the transition house for men coming out of prison with addiction problems. And she finds these men, the lost boys of society, to be more intelligent, generous and talented than threatening or unhinged -- at least usually.Off the Tracks is a story about the human spirit willing to fight against enormous odds. It is about passion and ragged hope, self-destruction and unrequited love. Taking Diane's bold lead, we fall head over heels for a broken-down, close-knit community for an impossible "wanderlust" wolf dog, and for the social misfits at Big Sab. In doing so, we discover beauty off the tracks in the kindness and camaraderie of Nanaimo's South End. Delivered with Foley's welcoming perceptive and soulfully charming panache for storytelling, this book will make the reader laugh throughout but also weep when we least expect it, all the while making all of us -- on both sides of the tracks -- more human.