Bellevue Square
by Michael Redhill | Other | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0385684835 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0385684835 Global Overview for this book
3 journalers for this copy...
From Amazon:
*Winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize*
A darkly comic literary thriller about a woman who fears for her sanity—and then her life—when she learns that her doppelganger has appeared in a local park.
Jean Mason has a doppelganger. She's never seen her, but others swear they have. Apparently, her identical twin hangs out in Kensington Market, where she sometimes buys churros and drags an empty shopping cart down the streets, like she's looking for something to put in it. Jean's a grown woman with a husband and two kids, as well as a thriving bookstore in downtown Toronto, and she doesn't rattle easily—not like she used to. But after two customers insist they've seen her double, Jean decides to investigate.
She begins at the crossroads of Kensington Market: a city park called Bellevue Square. Although she sees no one who looks like her, it only takes a few visits to the park for her to become obsessed with the possibility of encountering her twin in the flesh. With the aid of a small army of locals who hang around in the park, she expands her surveillance, making it known she'll pay for information or sightings. A peculiar collection of drug addicts, scam artists, philanthropists, philosophers and vagrants—the regulars of Bellevue Square—are eager to contribute to Jean's investigation. But when some of them start disappearing, she fears her alleged double has a sinister agenda. Unless Jean stops her, she and everyone she cares about will face a fate much stranger than death.
*Winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize*
A darkly comic literary thriller about a woman who fears for her sanity—and then her life—when she learns that her doppelganger has appeared in a local park.
Jean Mason has a doppelganger. She's never seen her, but others swear they have. Apparently, her identical twin hangs out in Kensington Market, where she sometimes buys churros and drags an empty shopping cart down the streets, like she's looking for something to put in it. Jean's a grown woman with a husband and two kids, as well as a thriving bookstore in downtown Toronto, and she doesn't rattle easily—not like she used to. But after two customers insist they've seen her double, Jean decides to investigate.
She begins at the crossroads of Kensington Market: a city park called Bellevue Square. Although she sees no one who looks like her, it only takes a few visits to the park for her to become obsessed with the possibility of encountering her twin in the flesh. With the aid of a small army of locals who hang around in the park, she expands her surveillance, making it known she'll pay for information or sightings. A peculiar collection of drug addicts, scam artists, philanthropists, philosophers and vagrants—the regulars of Bellevue Square—are eager to contribute to Jean's investigation. But when some of them start disappearing, she fears her alleged double has a sinister agenda. Unless Jean stops her, she and everyone she cares about will face a fate much stranger than death.
What a strange story. It asks "How do we know if our life is real or imagined in our head?" Our brains are wonderous things. What if we are all figments of our own imaginations? What if, like the holodeck, we only exist within our own bubble?
I particularly liked this book because its set in Toronto (my home city) and I recognized all the places mentioned in the novel and could see the routes and places described so well.
I particularly liked this book because its set in Toronto (my home city) and I recognized all the places mentioned in the novel and could see the routes and places described so well.
Flat Rate Canadian Book Box
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Welcome to BookCrossing, where we make the whole world a library!
To the finder of this book: Hello and congratulations!
You have not only found yourself a good book, but a whole community of booklovers dedicated to sharing books with each other and the world. I hope you'll stick around a bit and get to know BookCrossing --maybe even make a journal entry on this book.
You may choose to remain anonymous or to join (its free!) Feel free to read and keep this book, or to pass it on to a friend or even set it out "in the wild" for someone else to find like you did. If you do choose to join and journal, then you can watch the book as it travels-
If you do join, you'll be alerted by email each time someone makes another journal entry. It's all confidential (you're known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free.
Happy reading - join in making the whole world a library, won't you?
Being a low-tech person, I didn't have the means to make a JE once I left the house (cell only texts or make phone calls), so now I am getting around to making a JE about this book. It was part of a bookbox sent via MathGirl40, via Cestmoi. I have already read this novel, and so I took it to Harbord House Pub today for our meetup. If you are interested, here is my JE from when I read
Bellevue Square: "This book is quite a trip. Sometimes I had to re-read parts as it got rather confusing. As for the jacket description, it leads you to believe this is some kind of murder/thriller story, while it's more about getting right inside the world of someone having a mental breakdown - psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia. Jean lives in two worlds, and it's the world of her haywire brain that dominates. A beautifully written book, but not an easy read." For the entire thread (quite a history)...here goes: https://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/15382174
Bellevue Square: "This book is quite a trip. Sometimes I had to re-read parts as it got rather confusing. As for the jacket description, it leads you to believe this is some kind of murder/thriller story, while it's more about getting right inside the world of someone having a mental breakdown - psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia. Jean lives in two worlds, and it's the world of her haywire brain that dominates. A beautifully written book, but not an easy read." For the entire thread (quite a history)...here goes: https://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/15382174
Picked this up at our BookCrossing meetup. If I didn't take it Cestmoi was going to take it home and read it for a third time. I'll either read it and take it back, or hang onto it for a few years and bring it back unread (as is my pattern lately) and by then anyone who picks it up will have a different perspective. Not gonna lie, the consensus that it requires multiple readings to understand it is daunting.
