Bellevue Square

Worthy winner of the Giller 2017

This one is a mind & genre bender that jumps from mystery to paranormal to mental illness to fantasy and winds itself up all the way back again and leaves you wondering what it is that you just read.

The changes in plot thrust are signalled by the 4 different parts of the book, often with the final sentences sending a jolt through you. Saying too much would be a spoiler but definitely be prepared to ride along with an unreliable narrator and question which, if any, of her personalities are "real."

Several reviews I've read find the ending unsatisfying as it seems to leave so much unanswered but often I find those are my favorite kinds of books where the reader is left to make their own ending and show more interpretation. For me the final part read like a perfectly written dream sequence where the events are not as they would occur in reality but exactly as they happen in our sleep. Your experience may differ but will be just as valid.

Trivia
Despite a disclaimer in the book by the author Michael Redhill, Toronto's Bellevue Square Park is still a going concern in this reality. Perhaps not in the fictional one though. show less

Michael Redhill’s Giller Prize-winning novel Bellevue Square guards its secrets closely. Set in Toronto, the novel features a twisty, zig-zaggy plot that careens unpredictably through a shape-shifting chain of events that, when all is said and done, seems to question the very nature of truth, reality and perception. Seemingly ordinary Jean Mason owns and operates a bookstore in a pleasant downtown neighbourhood crowded with cafés, specialty shops and upscale, refurbished homes. One day a regular customer of the bookstore, Mr. Ronan, comments that he has just seen Jean outside and asks how she managed to change her hair and clothes so quickly. Strangely, unnervingly, the encounter turns violent when Jean denies that the person he saw show more was her. Then, not long after this, a customer Jean has never met before enters the store with a similar tale: a friend of hers, who lives nearby, is a dead-ringer for Jean. Driven by curiosity, Jean befriends this stranger, whose name is Katerina, and begins her search for Ingrid Fox, her apparent doppelgänger. Jean’s search takes her to Bellevue Square, a park in the old city centre, near Kensington Market, where Ingrid has been spotted, a place occupied by a motley crew of intriguing and unusual characters (homeless misfits, addicts, derelicts), a few of whom she enlists to help her in her search. Then Katerina and Mr. Ronan both end up dead, and the plot apparently veers into thriller territory. As the weeks pass Jean’s obsession with Ingrid escalates. Each day she shuts the bookstore early in order to camp out in Bellevue Square and wait for Ingrid to put in an appearance. She lies to her husband Ian and her children about where she’s spending her time. The situation escalates further when Jean breaks into Ingrid’s home. Eventually Jean’s fixation with Ingrid dominates her waking hours, and she becomes a danger to herself and those around her. At this point the story swivels again. Jean is institutionalized and the reader learns that much of what he has been led to believe about Jean Mason is not necessarily true. In Jean Mason, Michael Redhill has created an archetypal unreliable narrator, someone with a story to tell but whose observations, for very good reasons, cannot always be trusted. The story Jean tells is often puzzling, sometimes confusing, sometimes frustratingly so, but because this happens repeatedly, the reader can only assume that it is a deliberate gambit on the part of the author, meant to throw us off the scent or keep us off balance. As we approach the chaotic denouement, Jean’s obsession drives her to increasingly bizarre and desperate behaviour, and we are left wondering if the elusive Ingrid Fox is real or a projection of a disordered mind. Redhill drops clues aplenty but declines to answer this question in a definite manner. However, this is not a problem since early on Redhill establishes that Bellevue Square is a book of hidden depths, where very little is as it seems, and where much is going on beneath the visible surface. Ultimately it will fall to the reader to decide if, having reached the end, getting there was worth the effort. show less

Wow, other people were right in comparing this to David Lynch's work. Doppelgangers and shifting realities and perceptions. This is the first book I've read where it would have been better to read a physical copy, because I wanted to keep flipping back because reality keeps changing, and it's so self-referential. Just like in the movie Mulholland Drive, you keep seeing repetitions and reflections and connections. And like Mulholland Drive, it would probably be worth re-reading to see what I catch the second time. I also want to read some commentaries on this now, to see what other people saw in it. My interpretation is (spoilers!!) that Jean really is Inger's doppelganger, and that's why her reality keeps changing when Inger's does. Or show more maybe she's what Inger is perceiving internally while she is unconscious in the hospital. And at the end, Inger's death means Jean's death also, and the quiet room could be the afterlife - St. Peter at the gates of heaven.
Side note: Canadian English profs are gonna loooooove teaching this one in CanLit. There's so much to delve into, it's kinda overwhelming. show less

The Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning novel of 2017 follows Jean Mason, who works in a bookstore in downtown Toronto, has a husband and two sons, and has several people inform her that she has a doppelganger wandering around Kensington Market. As Jean embarks on a quest to find this elusive other her, she'll end up spending a lot of time in Bellevue Square trying to unravel the mysterious connection between them.

Ugh! This book! I really disliked it throughout and then HATED the ending. I understand the appeal of it for an awards committee with the unreliable narrator and it's constant exploration of sanity (Bellevue isn't in the title for nothing). It leaves one constantly questioning what is or isn't real, but for this reader it was an show more uncomfortable and occasionally infuriating reading experience. It feels mostly like an exercise in Michael Redhill feeling very smug about what a clever novel he wrote and how many questions it leaves its readers with. I'm not biting. Decidedly not my jam but I can see other readers eating it up so don't let my violent dislike (entirely) dissuade you show less

Bellevue Square is the latest book from Michael Redhill. It's also a Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist.

The premise? A customer in Jean Mason's bookstore tells her that she has a double, a doppelganger. Jean is intrigued and heads to Bellevue Square (a park) to see if she too can see this woman.

I was intrigued by the idea of the double. And my interest was further piqued by this early line..."I put the phone away and at that exact moment a woman I would later be accused of murdering walked into my shop."

And with those two pieces, I thought I was in for a mystery. And I was - but the book certainly did not unfold in any way I could have predicted. There is so much more to Jean's tale. The facade that Jean presents to the world - and her show more family - has cracks in it.

Redhill's writing in Bellevue Square is fiendishly clever. The reader must pay close attention as Jean's world turns on a dime. What is truth? What is fiction? There is no way to tell as we see everything from Jean's viewpoint - and she is most definitely an unreliable narrator. Her mind is frightening, yet brilliant.

What I really enjoyed were the conversations and interactions between Jean and those that frequent Bellevue Square. While somewhat nonsensical at times, these interactions seem the closest to 'real' for Jean, often overshadowing the relationship with her husband and children.

Take your time reading Bellevue Square. There is much to consider as Jean seeks answers. There are hints and references dropped along the way that had me forming in my mind what I thought was 'the answer.' And I was wrong. I think I hooted out loud when I realized what was happening in the final chapters. I don't want to say anymore and spoil the book, but overlapping is a word I'll throw out there. I am still not sure if I completely 'got' everything that Redhill has woven into his book, as some of it is a bit confusing. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Redhill mentions that Bellevue Square explores loss and "is about the surprising (and disturbing) plasticity of the self and what happens when the sense you've made of things stops making sense."

Bellevue Square is set in the streets and area around Kensington Market in Toronto. Redhill has lived and worked in the Toronto area for many years and his descriptions benefit from his first hand observations. References to Canadiana - Dominion grocery stores, Tim Hortons, Shopper's Drug Mart will be familiar to Canuck readers.

Inger Ash Wolfe is Redhill's nom de plume. I was delighted to find references to the Hazel Micallef books. And it was only on reading the acknowledgements that I discovered Bellevue Square is "part one of a Modern Ghost, a triptych." I will pick up the next book, as I truly want to see where and what could transpire next.

Thought provoking and fiendishly clever. show less

Thank you to the publisher for a free copy of Bellevue Square.

Oh my god, I have no idea what to make of this one. And I mean that in the best possible way.

This is a book about dopplegangers, madness, losing your sense of self, and figments of one's imagination. This book is beautifully written. It's kind of terrifying. It had me gasping audibly and then feeling a little sheepish because, wow, when was the last time I got that into a book?

There is not a whole lot that I can say without spoiling anything. But if this book is any kind of indicator, I need to read all of Michael Redhill's -- and Inger Ash Wolfe's -- books immediately.

Go pick it up. It's weird, creepy, and a wild ride.

This book is shortlisted for the 2017 Giller Prize and I think it could be a contender. I've only read one other book on the shortlist so I don't know what the others are like but this was excellent.

Jean owns a bookstore in downtown Toronto. One day a regular customer comes in and says he just saw her in Kensington Market but her hair was shorter. Jean doesn't think too much about the encounter but then a Latina comes into the store and says she knows this other woman because she comes to her stall in the market. Jean ventures into the market herself and she is soon obsessing over finding this woman who is called Ingrid Fox. Jean spends days in the park near the market, Bellevue Square, looking for Ingrid and talking to the other show more regulars in the park to get more details about Ingrid. Jean's husband becomes concerned about her and insists on going to Bellevue Square with her. He is appalled by the garbage and the smell and the vagrants, some of whom are patients at a nearby mental hospital. Jean takes him into the market to meet her Latina friend but as they get close they see police outside her stall. They learn she has been murdered and that the person who did it looked just like Jean. Is Ingrid Fox murdering all the people who know about Jean? And is Jean next on the list?

As the story progresses we learn more about Jean and her mental health issues. This leads the reader to wonder if Jean is imagining everything. Just as we decide that Jean has made up Ingrid someone else calls Jean by her doppelganger's name. This book takes the idea of an untrustworthy narrator to the max. show less