Bad Date: The Lost Girls of Vancouver's Low Track

by Trevor Greene

Vancouver's downtown East-side neighborhood, the poorest postal code in Canada, is a ten-block compound of poverty, pain, and despair in a sparkling, healthy, rich city. In the parlance of the street, this area is known as Low Track, where drug-addicted prostitutes barely sustain themselves and their habit by selling their bodies. Suspended in the miasma of smoke and despair and the stench that hangs over these mean streets is the mystery of thirty-one...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550224743
• ISBN13: 9781550224740
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A Human Look At A Hard Life

BAD DATE by Trevor Greene is a combination sociological/social work study of the many prostitutes on Vancouver's Low Track who have gone missing since the 90s. Greene's focus is on the life style of the prostitute/victims, most of them drug addicted, and on their families, making it clear that the women are no less human than any of the rest of us. There is also focus on the sick men who physically victimize - to the point of killing - these women who are among the most vulnerable and who due to their addiction and transience are the least likely to be immediately missed. For the sexually conflicted, bullying men who need to satisfy their Madonna/whore lunacies by battering women who have done nothing to them, the prostitute/addict is a gold mine. Greene's work touches all bases of the subject including law enforcement, politics, disease, in addition to the main areas I've mentioned. Two items of note: 1. BAD DATE is not true crime. 2. It was published before Vancouver pig farmer, Robert Pickton, was arrested and charged with the murders of some of the missing women, but this doesn't make the book any less interesting. Trevor Greene has written about what is to me a heartbreaking subject and while doing so has demonstrated his understanding that we are all human beings and that the most troubled of us is as valued as the rest. Highly recommended.

I wish more people had this much compassion

This information contained in this book my seem to be dated or lacking since it was written just before Robert Pickton was arrested and charged with the murders of several missing women from the Vancouver area (some of whom are mentioned in this very book). Despite that, I think that anyone interested in the subject of these murders or with the plight of poor, drug addicts will find this book to both an illuminating and riveting expose. This book provides a glimpse into the horrific lives of some of the people at the lowest rung of society. This book will definitely not appeal to everyone. It is, first of all, deeply sad and disturbing for anyone not used to seeing or hearing about people who live their lives on the fringes of society, and who lives are a constant struggle for survival from day to day. Their lives are a constant cycle of getting high and finding the means to stay high. First of all, they get addicted to whatever their drug of choice is. Then they find that they must feed this adiction. Usually whatever income they have is not enough to support the habit or they cannot continue to hold a regular job and they must resort to other means of supporting the habit (like stealing or prostituion). If they don't feed their addiction, they must suffer withdrawal and that for them is a pain like no other. So, they steal or sell their bodies or whatever they must do in order to finance their habit. Prostitutes often are addicted to drugs in order to ease the pain of servicing so many. Also, not everyone would care to read this book because not everyone is sympathetic to such people. That never ceases to amaze, shock, disturb, or anger me. Often times, I have found that the reaction some people have to the pig farmer murders is more like amusement or indifference. The general concensus among many is that these women were lowlife, drug addicted prostitues who got what they deserved and that society is much better off without them. What is ironic here is that many of these women did not start out their lives this way and that for whatever reason they chose to or were forced to take the wrong path in life. Almost all of them had family and friends who cared for them and loved them deeply. For those victims who did not even have that, I say that they deserve even more sympathy because they never had a chance. No one has the right to make the decision if these victims deserved to live or not. One part of the book that really shocked and disturbed me was an excerpt taken from the diary of Sarah De Vries (one of the missing women mentioned in the book and linked to the pig farm). By all accounts, Miss De Vries was a lovely, smart young woman who was very much loved by family and friends. Why she would choose to do what she did is a mystery. In this excerpt, she wrote about a close call with a john who had picked her up for a "date" and then taken her out into a desolate, wooded area and tried to kill her. He nearly accomplished this, but she was

Injured in Afghanistan

Trevor Greene is an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces and was recently seriously injured while on duty in Khandahar. This book shows the depth of this man as a human being. The murders in Vancouver's downtown eastside were allowed to happen by police and public indifference fed by racism. Captain Greene goes deep into conditions on the east side to help all of us understand this. That this man would go on to serve in Afghanistan speaks well of the quality of officer that the Canadian Armed Forces are attracting. Apparently there is an earlier book on the homeless in Tokyo that I am trying to locate.

Riveting account of important social topic

BAD DATE: THE LOST GIRLS OF VANCOUVER'S LOW TRACK is a riveting, compelling account of the girls and women who were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, and who had to work the streets of Vancouver's "downtown Eastside," also known as "Low Track" as prostitutes to fund their drug habits. The accounts of the lives of these women are harrowing. Many of these girls tried drugs once and became hooked on them. In particular, the account of Sheila and Julia Egan, two sisters whose mother recounts the story of how they became hooked on drugs to the author, Trevor Greene, should serve as a warning to other parents to supervise their children more closely. The Egan girls became hooked on drugs merely by "hanging out" a little too much with other kids at a nearby strip mall. Sheila Egan has been missing for six or seven years now and may have been murdered by Robert Pickton--it is not known for sure what happened to her, but she is still missing. The tragedy here is that these women were talented, warm, caring human beings who became enmeshed and entrapped in a horrible life that was so dangerous, that it's no wonder they fell victim to someone who took their lives. Anyone who is in the fields of counseling, specifically school counseling or school psychology, or concerned parents who want to know how to protect their daughters from undesirable outside influences should read this book.

A stunning expose of an ongoing serial killing

With more than 50 women missing from Vancouver, you'd think there would be a lot of books and writings on this unbelievable story. However, Trevor Greene appears to be the only one with guts to tackle this horrific story.Reminiscent of the Green River killings, but more prolific, these missing women are out there somewhere. Trevor does a great job of keeping objective as he talks about a tradegy that is beyond most of our understanding.