Jean’s memories twist and turn, creating the uncomfortable sensation that you’re living in – rather than merely reading about – her besieged consciousness. By the end, it dissolves into short scenes and mutating montages. At the beginning, it’s direct and dialogue-driven. Stylistically, the prose mimics her descent into madness. I do subtlety in other areas of my life.” When several of Jean’s customers tell her she has a doppelgänger named Ingrid who hangs out in Kensington Market, Jean begins a downward spiral of searching, surveillance, and slipping her own skin.īellevue Square is clearly a novel about mental illness, but because Jean is a highly unreliable narrator, that’s about all that’s clear. As she describes it, “I have a bookshop called Bookshop. Its brooding sense of place and strange unreality have burrowed under my skin.īellevue Square tells the story of Jean – a wife, mother, and bookstore owner in downtown Toronto. Because try as I might, I can’t shake this novel. I’m done Michael Redhill’s Bellevue Square, but it doesn’t feel like it. I’m sane (I think?), but it doesn’t feel like it. I’m in New York, but it doesn’t feel like it.
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