England is renowned for having enshrined in literature so many of her Victorian eccentrics, a number of them dominating fathers. This novel is a Canadian contribution to this tradition, but lighter-hearted than most. This family portrait of crusty, opinionated, possible, yet comical man, is developed in a series of witty, ironic and, and at times, tender anecdotes of family life in Vancouver's West End during the teens and twenties. It is also, in an unusually palatable form, a contribution to the social history of Vancouver, especially that once well-heeled district wedged between the downtown business section and Stanley Park.