East Van

In this classic struggle between the rich and the poor, the streets of Vancouver’s drug-infested Downtown Eastside are about to ignite.

Chris Walter writes like a man on death row, with nothing to lose, and East Van is his finest moment. A classic tale of addiction and greed that makes Trainspotting look like Chicken Soup for the Soul, this is one book you do not want to miss. “A broken bottle on the sidewalk reflected sunlight, splintering it into millions of twinkling prisms. The mailman walked by, whistling a jaunty tune as he went about his job. Laughter floated from a window and touched Angie deep in a spot she rarely visited. It seemed to her as if there must be a softer world out there somewhere, just below the surface but maddeningly out of reach. Lyrics from a song long forgotten drifted through her head like nerve gas across a battlefield.” It’s a beautiful world For you It’s not for me

Chris Walter, a recovering drug addict and hope-to-die punk rocker, began writing purposefully in 1998 after realizing that his life up to that point had been meaningless. His first published novel, Punk Rules OK (Burn Books, 2002) went largely unnoticed except by detractors, inspiring him to take a DIY approach to the book game. With help from his girlfriend who worked at a printing shop, he started GFY Press and began to write and distribute a steady stream of fiction novels and music biographies. Gofuckyerself Press then expanded to include unschooled troublemakers Simon Snotface, Stewart Black, and Australian Drew Gates, drawing further criticism from the established literary industry. Now, more than twenty titles and twelve years later, GFY Press remains undaunted.