The germ of the idea for this book came from a true story, that of James Mink and his daughter, which is a significant part of black history in Toronto. However, like most writers, I have gone on from there, and the plot and events of this book are entirely fiction.
The ideas, some of the actions, and many of the words I attribute to Professor Broske I took from an astonishing book, Fear, written by Angelo Mosso in 1893.
The Ollapod Club is an amalgam of the many such rehabilitation centres that flourished in the 1890s. Many of the principles we use in our attempts to deal with alcoholism were also used then. I have not included anything that was not done at the time, I’ve just attributed them to one club.
By 1896, bare-knuckle or prize fighting, as it was sometimes called, was illegal. I don’t know whether a fight took place in Mimico, but other than that I have been as true as possible to the rituals and language of these events.