The neighborhood is atop a mild escarpment, giving these buildings a height advantage on the city spreading south toward Lake Ontario.
In Mr. Roth's new novel, "Nemesis," it's the summer when a polio epidemic sweeps through the city, spreading anxiety and suspicion.
And nowhere are the problems more visible than in the chaotic capital city, spreading out across the banks and foothills of the Congo basin.
His father was a missionary who moved from city to city spreading the word: Lanez lived in Atlanta, New York and Miami before heading back to Toronto as a teenager to live with his grandmother.
He was inspired by the urban planner Lúcio Costa, who drew up a masterplan for Rio that correctly envisaged the city spreading west along the coast and predicted that Barra would one day be its hub.
Then I am off, through Staines, through Feltham, the train late into London, but into London all the same, the city spreading out below the tracks, dirty and lovely and limitless.
