By Pat Dobie
In the city of Vancouver, even dirt costs. In The Tenants three of its residents are struggling with their homes — whether that’s grappling with real estate prices, simmering resentments, or an uneasy co-living arrangement with the local wildlife.
Scott and Dave are an odd couple. Scott is single-minded in his goal of buying a house, leading to too-long work hours and an oppressive budgeting system. Dave hides artisanal beard products in the trunk of his car and tries to prioritize his comfort in the rental he’s happily lived in for years. For Maeve, their new “neighbour” in the tweed suit, her goals are much more simple: safety, shelter, and attempting to live peacefully with the local raccoons.
For all the things these folks lack — communication, shared goals, a home address — their differing motivations form an uneasy picture of the reality of living in a city that is inhospitable to many of its citizens. Stark, observational, darkly comic, and deeply human, The Tenants is a view inside the homes of some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable inhabitants as their lives intersect and diverge atop its shifting soil.
Pat Dobie writes fiction and nonfiction. She’s a two-time winner of the International 3-Day Novel Contest, a past finalist for the Historical Novel Society’s New Novel Award, and a recipient of the June Dodge Fellowship at Mineral School writing residency. She’s the author of Fiction Editing: A Writer’s Roadmap, the novella Pawn to Queen, and the guided Pleasure Journal.
