When I first moved to Hamilton to study at McMaster I lived on the top floor of an old three story walkup only a few minutes from campus. The neighbourhood was beautiful, old, large homes with big trees, and lots of quiet streets to wander down. A friend and I were walking one evening and I was exclaiming over how beautiful the homes were and how this was my dream neighbourhood. She responded that she used to think this too until she became a social worker. Now she said she knew too much about the secrets that lie behind those curtains.

Carrianne Leung’s That Time I Loved You is that kind of glimpse behind the curtains into the secret lives of people. Set in a Scarborough suburb in the late 70s and early 80s it reads like a series of interwoven short stories with each chapter written from a unique perspective. There is one teenage girl who shows narrates a few chapters but mostly you revisit the same incidents in the neighbourhood but from different perspectives. The most significant events in this neighbourhood is a series of suicides which rock the community.

Most of the families are immigrant families who have been able to move to the suburbs after great labours as newcomers. Leung’s glimpses into the struggles facing newcomers to Canada are fascinating and that alone would have made the book worth reading. Add to this a fascinating study in human relations especially from the perspective of teenagers and you have a really engaging read. I read it in one sitting.