Cherry Beach with Don Gillmor feat. John Schlarbaum

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of five novels, Cherry Beach, Breaking and Entering, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata; a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History; and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto. His latest book is Cherry Beach, published by Biblioasis in 2026. 

https://www.biblioasis.com/author/gillmor-don/

In this episode dedicated to the art of Canadian detective fiction, we have a bonus reading from Amherstburg mystery writer John Schlarbaum.

John Schlarbaum began his professional writing career working in the television industry before embarking on a career as a licensed Private Investigator. Along the way, he’s also co-owned an award-winning independent bookstore, reviewed books for CBC Radio, and has written mystery and thriller novels, children's books, as well as interactive plays. He’s best known for his two separate mystery series featuring flawed P.I. Steve Cassidy and feisty newspaper reporter Jennifer Malone.

John reads for us from The Groom Wore Red.

https://www.amazon.ca/stores/author/B086WMCHCG/about

Transcript

(0:03 - 0:19)
Welcome to All Write in Sin City, a podcast about writers and writing in the Windsor-Detroit region. Your podcasters today are Irene Moore Davis, author, educator, and local historian. Sarah Jarvis, former bookseller, publishing rep, and literary festival chair.

(0:20 - 0:37)
And me, Kim Conklin, Windsor-based writer and filmmaker. Our featured guest today is Dawn Gilmore. Dawn Gilmore is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General's Award for Nonfiction.

(0:37 - 1:08)
He's the author of five novels, Cherry Beach, Breaking and Entry, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata. He's also the author of a two-volume history of Canada, Canada a People's History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General's Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Star.

(1:09 - 1:21)
He's won 12 National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto. His latest book is Cherry Beach, which is published by Biblioasis this year, 2026.

(1:22 - 1:26)
Welcome back to the show, Dawn. Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

(1:27 - 1:47)
So, and a fun new work for you. With this new work of fiction, you venture into police procedural based in Toronto. What draws you to this genre, and what kind of research did you take on to portray this aspect so vividly? Well, I was drawn to this, I think, years ago when I was in university.

(1:47 - 2:04)
I was an English major, and I was, you know, studying all kinds of dry, what I felt was dry, 18th century English literature. And I started reading all the kind of hard-boiled detective fiction that was going on back then. So this would be Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett.

(2:04 - 2:17)
These were guys from the 30s, 40s, 50s, Ross MacDonald. And, you know, I really got caught up in those characters, and I kept reading them, and I thought this would be something. I'd like to write one of these one of these days.

(2:17 - 2:45)
And then, you know, decades went by, and I finally thought this was the right time. And, you know, you asked about research, and I mean, I did do some research, but I did a lot of journalism in the past. And, you know, at one point, I spent a couple of weeks with 51 Division in Toronto, which at that time was called the Penalty Box, because all the bad cops in Toronto were sent to 51 Division.

(2:45 - 3:06)
So what I started with was this idea that I would have a kind of hard-boiled detective type that, you know, kind of that prototype that I'd read before, and that he would be in 51 Division. So that was really the beginning of this. The immigrant experience weaves throughout this book.

(3:06 - 4:01)
There is a Muslim officer who sues the city for racism on the job, and also, without too many spoilers, how does the main character, Abel, learn that Toronto is seen as a corrupting influence on young immigrants of colour who move there from Jamaica, for example? Well, that was also, you know, taken from a magazine piece I'd done years ago, where I ended up interviewing, you know, it was, well, in the book, there's a scene where my detective goes down to Kingston, Jamaica, and he interviews the justice minister. And I actually did go down to Kingston and interview the justice minister, and then interviewed people here in Toronto who sort of said the same thing, which was, in some ways, we were kind of setting up immigrants to fail. And he had said, you know, he had mentioned, there were students back then that were getting credits for working at McDonald's.

(4:01 - 4:13)
And this was like a well-intentioned program. And I'm sure it benefits some of the kids. But as he said, back then, he said, you're essentially setting up a peasant class, you know.

(4:14 - 4:46)
And so all of these things that I think, you know, a lot of people are unaware of, and all the kind of, you know, legacy Canadians, as they're now called, are unaware of the kind of challenges that are facing a lot of people that come to the city. You also touch on corruption in the city. In fact, your characterization of the mayor of Toronto may be reminiscent of past mayors.

(4:46 - 5:16)
So how did you approach creating this characterization editorially? Well, the corruption, you know, when I was doing the piece on 51 Division, this was 30 years ago, they did have, I mean, it was sort of under scrutiny, under civic scrutiny, in terms of looking at what was going on in the division. And since then, there's been a, you know, there's a police corruption scandal that's going on right now. And at least one of those cops is from 51 Division.

(5:16 - 5:50)
And there is a woman, a Muslim woman of color, who was at 51 Division and alleged sexual assault and racism and Islamophobia, and did attempt to sue the city and the police department. So it's sort of an ongoing thing, the corruption. And then the mayor is, you know, I was thinking back to the Rob Ford years, just because he's such a, he's sort of a great character.

(5:50 - 6:33)
And so, I mean, it's not him exactly. But you can, as you say, when you read, you can see there are qualities that are certainly based on him. For sure. 

There was a lot of, I lived in Toronto in some of that time. Why was it important to depict the area of Toronto's Cherry Beach, which lends itself to the title, as a controversial spot in the story, when you're looking at locales within the city? Well, Cherry Beach, it became this sort of mythical place, because there were police officers who took suspects down to Cherry Beach and beat them up. Or sex workers.

(6:34 - 6:48)
And so it kind of created, it gained this sort of mythical stature. And there was a song, I think called the Cherry Beach Express, that was recorded and released. And it sort of touched on all those themes.

(6:49 - 7:04)
And it hasn't been used for that purpose for a long time. And I, you know, I allude to that in the book, that there is a scene at Cherry Beach, but this is sort of an anomaly, that it hasn't been this. Now, if you go down there, they have dance parties on Sundays.

(7:04 - 7:14)
And, you know, it's a much different world down there. But back then, it was this kind of ominous place. And I wanted to sort of bring back that ominous sense.

(7:17 - 7:43)
Cherry Beach is a contemporary novel, but it features flashbacks in the life of the main character, and even a rendition of a history of Jamaica. Why was this technique important to the structure of the book? You know, well, I think part of it's just my own interest in history. And so I was interested in, you know, the way that Toronto was formed, and the way it's changing right now.

(7:43 - 7:57)
Because I really wanted Toronto to be kind of a character in the book. And, you know, I didn't get into it in a big way. But, you know, Rosedale is, which used to be the kind of WASP enclave, and to some degree still is.

(7:57 - 8:10)
But, you know, it's changing dramatically. And because the nature of money is changing dramatically. So the people that are buying the, you know, $9 million houses are no longer all WASP.

(8:10 - 8:31)
And so the way the texture of the city is changing is something of real interest to me. And then the Jamaican scenes, I went down to Jamaica, to Kingston exclusively, years ago, again, to do a story. And I just found it a kind of fascinating place.

(8:31 - 8:53)
And I found their history kind of fascinating. And, you know, you could see, when you go through Kingston, this is a long time ago, it may be much different now. But when you went through Kingston then, you could see this sort of, there would have been this sort of wonderful middle class that had really, I think, come under assault.

(8:53 - 9:24)
You know, once the two main political parties started, you know, using gangs as part of their kind of, you know, their political world, I think it really had a very destructive effect on the fabric of that society. And so looking at those two cultures and the way those societies are changing, I just found really interesting. In your flashbacks, you also include references to hockey.

(9:25 - 10:02)
Were you intending to integrate sort of the current controversy surrounding off and on ice hockey player behavior with your portrayal of other groups, such as the police and the gangs in the novel? No, you know, the hockey stuff is actually, the hockey stuff is sort of like the cooking stuff, which is really just my own experience. You know, I was a fanatical, I grew up in the prairies, and the hockey rink was about 40 meters from my house. And I was one of those kids that would go there at like 6 a.m., you know, when it was still dark, and put on his skates and skate around and practice and spend the whole day there.

(10:02 - 10:24)
And so I had this sort of hockey world, and it was something that I abandoned. And I sort of had the same thing in the book, where it's something that was very important to him and was useful for him and got him through university, but then he's obviously left it behind. And then the cooking is the same sort of thing.

(10:24 - 10:45)
It's sort of, you know, I like to cook, and I had a long, or not too long, but a short string of, you know, girlfriends and partners who didn't cook at all. And I thought if I want to have a nice dinner, I'm going to have to learn how to do this myself. And then I got caught up in it, and it became kind of a thing.

(10:45 - 11:11)
So I incorporated both those aspects in the book. Part of the atmosphere of the story is this stifling, accurately stifling description of the summer heat throughout the story. Do you see this as an opportunity to integrate some of your nonfiction writing interest in your fiction? It sounds like you are drawing a lot from your life.

(11:11 - 11:30)
Do you find it unavoidable not to address this kind of aspect within your writing? You know, to some degree. And with the weather, you know, I remember there's a quote from Hemingway where he said almost all the weather in his books is whatever was outside the window at the time he was writing. And, you know, it sort of stuck with me.

(11:30 - 11:50)
And it's not always the case here, but, you know, certainly when you're sitting, I have a third-floor office in Toronto that, you know, it's impossible to keep cool. And so, you know, when I'm writing in July or August, this is always like kind of on the verge of being unbearable up here. And so it ends up coming out, I think, on the page ultimately.

(11:54 - 12:08)
So you've already shared with us that you do love to cook and you're a foodie. In the novel, Abel's meals are mouthwatering. But Abel also pays tribute to the foods that immigrants bring to us here in Canada.

(12:08 - 12:32)
At one point he says, other than faith, food is the most portable cultural artifact. Why does Abel need to share this with the reader? Interesting question. And I think part of it is, you know, I'm old enough to remember when Toronto was this sort of, it felt like a kind of homogeneous white kind of town that wasn't very interesting.

(12:33 - 12:55)
And one of the issues was there wasn't a lot of really interesting restaurants, you know. And then over the course of kind of 20 years or so, suddenly there's, you know, a million great restaurants and all these interesting places and all these kind of foods that we'd never seen before. And it just changed that whole culinary landscape so dramatically.

(12:57 - 13:24)
And to my mind, you know, was one of the biggest impacts on the city in a kind of very quiet way because, you know, it was an evolution rather than a revolution. So I wanted to kind of play with that idea in the book. Are you working on any new books these days? And if so, why? Well, I am actually.

(13:25 - 13:37)
Dan Wells at Biblioasis has the manuscript of my next novel. So we're working on that together. And in terms of the why, you know, I don't know.

(13:37 - 13:56)
It's almost like an unanswerable question. I think, you know, as long as there's something kind of, as long as there's an idea that's sort of agitating within you, it's a kind of compulsion to sit down and write it. And so as long as that's there, you know, I'll keep going.

(13:57 - 14:20)
And once you're in something like that, it's, I mean, it's very captivating and, you know, it keeps you interested and you're happy to come, you know, climb up the stairs to your office every morning. And so, you know, I'm grateful that it's still coming to me and it's still happening and that someone's still interested in publishing it. That's awesome.

(14:20 - 14:45)
Well, we'll look forward to that. Is it another book about Abel? Again, not to do any stories, but is it, there's no series happening? There could be a series. The book that's in right now isn't part of it, but we, I was talking to Dan yesterday, in fact, and we, you know, we talked about maybe doing another book with the same character as Cherry Beach.

(14:46 - 14:53)
So hopefully that happens. That would be great fun. We'd love to hear a bit of Cherry Beach today.

(14:53 - 15:08)
Would you like to read something for our listeners? Sure. I'll just read the opening few pages. And I should preface this by saying there's a conversation in the opening that is actually taken from real life.

(15:08 - 15:41)
When I, 30 years ago, when I was out with the bicycle police, when I was doing this piece on 51 Division, and we would cycle around the night shift, which was like 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., and it was, you see a fascinating version of the city that you don't necessarily see in the daytime. But this conversation was taken from one of those bicycle rides. We were on Jarvis talking to a sex worker named Infinity who was saving up to have the operation done in Belgium.

(15:41 - 15:47)
You could have it done here, I said. It'd be cheaper. I don't want a Canadian vagina, she said.

(15:48 - 15:53)
They're subsidized, I said. They lack personality. It was early June.

(15:53 - 16:07)
The heat stills fly, not yet unwanted. Half a dozen women lingered in the heat in their summer clothes, halter tops, heels, a festive boa. There had been a series of assaults against sex workers over the last two months.

(16:08 - 16:15)
We talked to the girls. They were jittery, didn't know anything. Have a nice night and pay your taxes, I said.

(16:16 - 16:36)
Davis drove, eyes on the road, hands at 10 and 2, heading south. It was just after 7 p.m. The houses we passed were once the grand homes of the city's ruling Methodists, solid citizens who had created a city in their own image, righteous, prosperous, and dull. But cities have their own dark thoughts.

(16:39 - 16:54)
And the downtown spread out. Prostitutes and thieves arrived at their doorstep and the Methodists moved north to Rosedale, putting a ravine between themselves and sin. And their abandoned mansions became rooming houses or were turned into separate flats.

(16:55 - 17:11)
I'd been in some of them, squalid, dank, high ceilings with crown molding, a stained mattress on the floor, someone crying. Davis was telling me about something her daughter did at school, something uplifting, when the call came in. St. Jamestown, two bodies.

(17:13 - 17:16)
I took the call. Less than a minute away. Anything else, I said.

(17:17 - 17:23)
Two bodies, sixth floor, crying, screaming. Crying, screaming in progress? No. Discovered.

(17:24 - 17:32)
She gave us the address and unit number and I repeated it. Davis had already made a U-turn. I was scanning the street.

(17:32 - 17:43)
Whoever did it could be walking our way. A walk that had a studied nonchalance and the weapon in the trash, their adrenaline still swapping their system. Breathing a little off.

(17:44 - 17:50)
Eyes too eager for contact. Helpful in a non-helpful way. Calling me officer like Eddie Haskell.

(17:51 - 18:03)
St. Jamestown was a collection of high rises that were built at the beginning of the 20th century. There was one moment in history when that seemed like a good idea. The towers were mostly filled with immigrants who were trying to grab onto something larger.

(18:04 - 18:18)
And despite having the highest density in the country, it had a crime rate that was unremarkable. Until a year ago, when it started to become truly remarkable. An unexplained spike in assaults, car thefts, vandalism.

(18:19 - 18:31)
And most remarkably, a graffiti blitz that was staggering in scope and ambition. And now, a devil homicide. Very atmospheric.

(18:31 - 18:38)
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us again, Don Gilmour. The new book is Cherry Beach, published by Biblioasis.

(18:44 - 19:06)
Thanks again to Don Gilmour for chatting with us. In this episode, dedicated to the art of Canadian detective fiction, we have a bonus reading from Amherstburg mystery writer, John Schlarbaum. John Schlarbaum began his professional writing career working in the television industry before embarking on a career as a licensed private investigator.

(19:06 - 19:36)
Along the way, he's also co-owned an award-winning independent bookstore, reviewed books for CBC Radio, and has written mystery and thriller novels, children's books, as well as interactive plays. He's best known for his two separate mystery series featuring flawed P.I., Steve Cassidy, and feisty newspaper reporter, Jennifer Malone. Here's John reading for us from The Groom Wore Red.

(19:37 - 19:59)
What are your thoughts on marriage, Don? Are you waiting for the right guy to come along and sweep you off your feet? You know, like your friend who was getting married this afternoon? What's her name again? Emily? Don answered. And I'm not sure she was exactly swept off her feet by Nick. She's nine months pregnant, I said with a smile.

(19:59 - 20:08)
He must have swept her off her feet at least once. Don laughed. The joke may be on him because she's not 100% certain he's the father.

(20:09 - 20:24)
When they were on a short break, she hooked up with her old boyfriend, TJ, who was also the best man, by the way, who swears it was only one time. Wow, that's some best man. It's complicated, Don said.

(20:25 - 20:42)
Well, as for the pregnancy, it only takes one time. Not that I would know, I stated proudly. Does Nick know about TJ and Emily's fling? She says he doesn't, but in a town as small as Amherstburg, it's hard to keep any type of secret.

(20:42 - 21:01)
And when it comes to the decades-old feud between the bride and the groom's families, everybody, and I mean everybody, knows about their shared hatred for each other. Trust me, this could have been a shotgun wedding even before Emily became pregnant. I smiled at Don.

(21:01 - 21:20)
You have the strangest set of friends. Is there anything else I should know before the bullets start to fly? Only that the groom used to date the maid of honor who Emily thinks still might love Nick? My head began to hurt. Let me get this straight.

(21:21 - 21:53)
The bride doesn't know if the groom or the best man is the father of her baby? And the best man used to date the bride and the groom used to date the maid of honor? Is that correct? Yes, like I said, it is complicated, Don confirmed. Oh, one more thing. Despite what he says in public, Emily's father still distrusts every member of the groom's family and thinks his precious daughter could have done better than mechanic Nick.

(21:53 - 22:09)
Namely, he wanted her to reconcile with car salesman TJ, who just happens to work at his auto dealership. I almost pulled the car over to the side of the road. But I thought Nick worked at the dad's dealership.

(22:09 - 22:17)
He does. I gave Don a wide smile and shook my head. I was worried about not fitting in with this crowd.

(22:18 - 22:36)
And now? This is turning out to be the best date ever, I proclaimed as I stepped on the gas, forgetting all about Don not answering what her thoughts on marriage were. The sign said it all. Welcome to Amherstburg, the country's safest community to live.

(22:37 - 22:46)
Three years in a row. Thanks for joining us. Look for more episodes of All Right in Sin City wherever you listen to podcasts.

(22:46 - 23:01)
Or check out our website, allrightinsincity.com. For information and announcements of new podcasts, sign up to our email list or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We'll see you next time.