FACED with the distressing truths ofracism,poverty, and crime, city dwellers find insight and wisdom in short supply thesedays. Neil Bissoondath`s latest novel, The Innocence of Age, appears to offersome of both. It tells thestory of a father-son conflictthat embodies the clash of old, genteel Torontoand the new multicultural city of cold glitz and destitution. It`s a good, readable tale, andBissoondath tells it with honesty and sensitivity. Yet it`s only occasionallymoving, and too often falls into trite and predictable ruts. It`s possible thatthe author harboured some back-of-themind anxieties about whom he might offend-no small worry in a novel with a multiracial cast of characters, set in a citywhere touchiness rivals baseball as a pastime. Some of the male characters are no morethan rapacious stereotypes. And it seems churlish to complain about Lorraine, agoodas-gold `90s gal who handles hammers and popovers with equal dispatch.Nevertheless, readers of Bissoondath`s previous work know he can createcharacters who are more vivid and less cliched than these. Pasco, the central character, is alongtime Toronto resident, the owner of a greasy spoon and five years awidower. His life consists of work, the friendship of cronies at a nearby pub,and the lonely sifting-through of memories and unfinished conversations withhis late wife, Edna. Pasco`s son Danny has no use for his dad`s crowd, or forthe city`s unfortunates, people he derides as losers. He`s a yuppie creep whoprattles on about bucks and business to his staid old man. With true Torontohubris, Danny decides to renovate Pasco`s house for the eventual resale valueand his dad offers scant resistance to a disruption he hates. It`s hard tosympathize with Danny, and at this point in the story, it`s equally hard torespect Pasco, who plays doormat to his son`s Gucci shoes. Gradually we learn that Pasco is drivenby guilt to pander to a kid whose values he despises. It turns out he`d neverpaid back the nest egg he`d borrowed from Edna to open his restaurant moneythat should have gone toward his son`s education. Never mind that; Danny`smanaged to get an education of another kind. He`s a protege of Mr. Simmons, areal-estate developer and archetypal Toronto villain, who pontificates on thevalue of "profit, profit and more profit" and the joys ofrent-gouging. The man functions as a signpost directing the traffic of the plotaround him; an urban logo of evil, but hardly a fleshedout character. Mr. Simmons has a seamy - yet quitepredictable - hidden life. His maltreatment of Sita, a tenant who is an illegalimmigrant, provides the novel with its most gripping and horrific scene. WhenDanny overhears them, it forces his mothballed conscience out of drydock andinto troubled waters. Meanwhile Pasco has gotten chummy withhis widowed neighbour Lorraine, who`s as good-hearted in her own way as Simmonsis awful. As a friend of Pasco`s late wife, she`s an anchor to the past and tosome of its less savoury truths. All these she tells us as she cooks comfortfood, dashes off to her job at the crisis centre, and struggles to come toterms with her daughter`s lesbian lifestyle. It seems the only thing shedoesn`t do is sleep. Lorraine puts Pasco in a better frame ofmind as he tries to be of help to one of his drinking buddies. Montgomery, animmigrant from Grenada, is (along with Sita) the most vital character in thenovel. He`s a minor character, but when he speaks, his words carry the weightof his soul. He is ultimately a tragic figure who seems capable of both loveand foolishness. Likewise, Sita combines fear and terror with survivor`s grit,and a glance or a word from her alludes to depth that`s just below the surface. More often than not, the book has too muchawkward dialogue, too many wooden statements of opinion that keep us fromfeeling the heart at work. Yet Bissoondath effectively conveys a sense ofDanny`s emptiness as a component of his larger, soulless city. He has anexacting eye for the character and detail of Toronto and its street life. Bestof all, he shows a subtle and genuine sense of the process of grieving, and ofthe long, meandering road it takes through one man`s life. Pasco finally freeshimself of grief through a symbolic act that joins his past to presentsuffering and hope. It`s a satisfying ending for The Innocence of Age, abook with a strangely engrossing mix of banality and wisdom.