The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf by Timothy Taylor

A Fiction Review by Emily Weedon

I found myself needing to escape from my own head recently and craving a book that could completely take me out of myself. Happily I fell into the arms of The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf. What grabbed me first was very personal: the protagonist notes the anniversary of the death of his mother, Lilly, who spoke with a European accent, who made bread and who died of cancer. A significant event in the book plays out June 23rd. My own mother, Lily, died almost a year ago, of cancer. A Finn, she had a lilting European accent. Her birthday was June 23rd. Before I get into the excellent work in Taylor’s novel, I have to stand back and marvel at the unique and deeply personal ways books can connect with readers. We need these connections, now more than ever, as the globe suffers conflict. Books remind us of our common hurdles as we make our way through the the short maze of thorns that makes up our life.

The Rise And Fall Of Magic Wolf is a staggering work, sprawling and real and romantic and bittersweet. This is a book set in our time, yet a timeless book that maps a human race for achievement, to make a mark. To live and love, broadly, deeply, fully. In this Künstlerroman, Timothy Taylor wows us with the panache of the elite culinary scene, giving us chefs as superstars and food as an uber-refined object of art/consumption and expression. Protagonist Teo has set the goal for himself of working in a busy, exacting commercial kitchen in Paris, France, amongst the hierarchical army-like ranks of kitchen staff who make up elite cooking.

The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf’s engines also reflect the modern FOMO machine of jet-setting foodies who make cuisine a lifestyle. Deep foodies will admire the generous descriptions of entire menus, feasts and techniques, though I understand the writer has not himself worked in a kitchen. This is the power of research and writing at work. I took notes while reading on wine and food pairings just in case I hit the big time one day. Scenes which depict the making of a 3 day wine reduction in a bathtub sized pot brought to mind Babette’s Feast and The Taste of Things. Food is, no question, on an altar here. At the same time, what makes it really work for someone like me who has worked mixing concrete, painting movie flats and yes, had my share of time slinging fine cheese and hauling dishes in kitchens is the nod to the unexpected joy in hard, gruelling labor and long, precise apprenticeship. Details like the butane torch wielding, testicle grabbing evil bosses ring true to me: there is so much in common between the cruelties and harshness of film and kitchens.

We all eat. Feeding ourselves can be as simple and divine as nourishing oneself with tomatoes on toast. But food is also big business and entertainment which has mutated into a corporate, navel-gazing, star-fucking, Michelin star grasping exercise in branding. These days chefs as corporate stars are being replaced with chefs as authentic organic gentle farmer princes. Beards, Tatts, and aggressively organic fare, all de riguer. Beards, because, as the novel get into, this has traditionally been a world where getting ahead seemingly required a penis.

The food world drives at times to ultimate, processed refinement (as in haute or molecular cuisine) until the pendulum swings back to rediscover ultimate authenticity. I love the way Taylor maps these shifts taking us from traditional French Brasserie, through to the New World and Asian cuisine which have swept through several decades. Deeply informed about the tides of influence in the food world, the novel also takes us on a tour of what so often goes wrong in business. A concept gets rolled out, becomes wildly successful and then vertically and horizontally integrates and performs branding exercises until anything cool and right is obliterated, and a bloated, famous brand is pilloried for having old fashioned views or politics, for appropriation, right before being discarded as passé. I’ve watched restaurants come and go in Toronto for forty years and shudder to think about the fortunes raised, made, spent and lost on the pyrrhic tastes of those in the know.

Where the novel really picks up speed is when, in an effort to be inclusive and globe-trotting using what were regional home recipes instead devolves into polemics. “Colonialist Businesses Generate Racist Profits” shouts a headline and so, the seemingly straightforward business of cooking food to sell to diners becomes a cultural flashpoint.

The story brings to my mind the early pandemic when vegan protestors targeted local Toronto restaurant Antler. Later, it was Bar Isabel, seemingly on the basis of success, since they skipped dozens of other meat-serving restaurants on College and Dundas St. Appropriation, protests, MeToo and cancellation are elements of the world of this novel, reflecting these times of upheaval we live in. They are not, however, the point of the book. The book is deeper, and sweeter than all that. Thank god: there is more to life than protest and polemics and Taylor’s book is here to remind us of that.

As hinted at by the title, what expands must also contract, and the the novel delves into the many ways that world becomes stained with mistakes, misunderstandings, good intentions gone wrong, missed opportunities, trajectories decapitated. I appreciate the book for the way it maps a working life, the trajectory of a person with ambition who sets their mind to a goal and their shoulder to the wheel. The feeling of being tired, yet in the flow, being utterly necessary to a process, linked with other humans, engaging together in service of a bigger goal. Forget about Capitalism and product for a moment, while reading: working together as people, at the peak of ability is a unique human experience. The sore muscles and sheer exhaustion the falling into bed at the end of gruelling day’s work is its own kind of reward, especially when it is part of a young person’s pursuit of growth, hopes and dreams.

For much of our lives, we winnow upwards, struggling upstream towards our goals, through school, apprenticeships, hard knocks, experience. The steps on the way up are a prescribed set of achievements, like rungs on a ladder. Learning and maturing is measurable, quantifiable. The way up has a structure.

Failure, however, is unique. There are so many ways to fail: our own trajectories, ourselves, and those around us. We grow in experience and responsibility, until we are diminished, and no longer have goals or even responsibilities any more. We are left with our mistakes. After all the effort and career building our legends are so much wax paper. For all the hyperbole, for all the big, grand, misguided efforts, it comes down to the smallest things. “…peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ambrosia.” We are left, if we are lucky, with those who choose to stand by us through life’s storms.

This sweeping story takes on the day's issues, but it is not about these issues. It is a much bigger book than MeToo or changing kitchen culture or waves of culinary taste. It is a book about the yearning of the human heart, the restless, fraught passage through the noise and static to find, perhaps belatedly, what is simple, true and right. It is above all, about love. Of a man for a woman. Of brothers and sisters in arms. Of members of an elite tradition. The Rise And Fall Of Magic Wolf came to me when I needed rescuing from ruminant quotidian thoughts. It took me in with huge arms. It has more magic in its pages than one review can encompass.

---

About the Author

Timothy Taylor is a bestselling, award-winning novelist and journalist. His debut novel Stanley Park was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and his writing has won or been shortlisted for over twenty magazine awards. He lives in Vancouver with his family and two Brittany spaniels, Keaton and Murphy.

About the Reviewer

Emily Weedon is a CSA award-winning screenwriter and author of the dystopian debut Autokrator, with Cormorant Books. Her forthcoming novel Hemo Sapiens will be published in September 2025, with Dundurn Press. 

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rare Machines (Sept. 10 2024)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1459753194

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1459753198