Bellevue Square, Michael Redhill
Bellevue Square, Michael Redhill
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Bellevue Square

Author: Michael Redhill

Narrator: Sarah Mennell

Unabridged: 8 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/31/2017


Synopsis

*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.

About The Author

MICHAEL REDHILL is the author of the novels Martin Sloane, shortlisted for the Giller Prize and winner of the Books in Canada First Novel Award, Consolation, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; and most recently, Bellevue Square, winner of the 2017 Giller Prize. He has written a novel for young adults, six collections of poetry, and four plays, including the internationally celebrated Goodness. He has also written a series of crime novels under the name Inger Ash Wolfe, one of which, The Calling, was made into a movie with Susan Sarandon and Donald Sutherland. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Liz on September 30, 2017

I have no clue what just happened. I have no clue how to feel about it. I have no clue if Redhill's further books will explain it further or less. I am not sure if I liked it or not, but i feel like that is the sign of good writing.......more

Goodreads review by Glenn on October 13, 2018

Last fall, Michael Redhill’s Bellevue Square won the Giller Prize, one of the most prestigious (and, at $100,000, generous) literary prizes in Canada. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at the jury deliberations, just to hear some convincing arguments for the book’s quality. It’s not bad – it’s......more

Goodreads review by Anna on October 04, 2017

2.5* - This story starts with a great idea but quickly moves toward the bizarre. By the time I was a third of the way in, it became apparent that this was going in a different direction than what I was expecting so I adjusted my expectations and read on but I could never really catch ground with thi......more

Goodreads review by Brett on December 09, 2017

This is the first David Lynch movie I've ever liked.......more

Goodreads review by Allison ༻hikes the bookwoods༺ on November 12, 2017

Thank God that’s over. It got marginally better about halfway through, and I thought the book had finally found its rhythm, but no. Then it just became more and more bizarre. I didn’t enjoy this book at all. If it wins the Giller, I may have to boycott the award in future!......more


Quotes

Winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize
#1 National Bestseller
Longlisted for the 2018 Toronto Book Award
Globe and Mail Best Book of 2017
A National Post Best Book of 2017
A CBC Best Book of 2017
A Kobo Best Book of 2017
A NOW Magazine Best Book of 2017


"To borrow a line from Michael Redhill's beautiful Bellevue Square, 'I do subtlety in other areas of my life.' So let's look past the complex literary wonders of this book, the doppelgangers and bifurcated brains and alternate selves, the explorations of family, community, mental health and literary life. Let's stay straightforward and tell you that beyond the mysterious elements, this novel is warm, and funny, and smart. Let's celebrate that it is, simply, a pleasure to read."  —The 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize Jury 

"The opening chapters of this new opus, Bellevue Square, stick closely to the grip-lit script: simple, compelling prose, sudden plot twists, looming violence and a female narrator who swiftly proves unreliable. But as the reader becomes more and more absorbed in the story, the book quietly becomes something else. Something mystifying and haunting and entirely its own. . . . Reading Bellevue Square is as captivating as it is unsettling. . . . This modern ghost story . . . will not soon be forgotten." —Toronto Star

"Bellevue Square is something of a performance. . . . In its taut span of 262 pages, Bellevue Square features several narrative and tonal hairpin turns. With each of these, our admiration for Redhill's storytelling dexterity burgeons. . . . I'd rather be lost in Redhill's ghost story than grounded in your average slab of tasteful literary realism." The Globe and Mail

"Described often as a dark, comic thriller, Bellevue Square is packed full of themes keeping the reader a little off balance but always entertained." —Vancouver Sun

"Not since Paul Auster's City of Glass has there been a novel this engaging about doppelgangers and the psychological horror they wreak. . . . As chilling as that stranger you're pretty sure has been following you all afternoon." —The Title

"[A] moving and beautifully written memoir." —CBC Books

"There's a boldness to [Bellevue Square] and, at its best, a genuine thrill." —The Walrus

"Sit yourself down in Bellevue Square and watch as parallel worlds collide. Redhill has written a mind-blowing brainteaser of a novel with plot twists worthy of David Lynch. A brilliant tribute to those among us whose brains are wired differently." —Neil Smith, author of Boo

"By turns harrowing and mesmerizing." —Quill & Quire

"Even as we start doubting Jean we can’t stop loving her. Along the way, Redhill gives us a ton of twists and turns and makes Toronto one of the stars of the show." —NOW


Awards

  • Scotiabank Giller Prize
  • Toronto Book Award