Mirror Lake

by Andrée A. Michaud, J. C. Sutcliffe (Translator)

Overview

From internationally acclaimed crime writer Andrée A. Michaud, a brilliant and original tragicomic thriller about one man’s search for peace and sanctuary amid invasive neighbours and a mysterious death.

Retired fifty-something Robert Moreau flees a society he can no longer bear for Mirror Lake, Maine. Little does he suspect that an intrusive neighbour and a mysterious death will quickly dispel any illusions he may have had about finding sanctuary in isolation. The misanthropic Moreau quickly learns that his Thoreau-like vision is a fiction. And as in all fiction, nothing, not even Moreau’s own identity, is certain — except, perhaps, the friendship of his loyal dog, Jeff.

In this tragicomic novel of the confusion between the fabular and the real, brilliantly rooted in the forested Quebec-Maine landscape, Moreau is compelled to look deep in Mirror Lake’s shimmering waters and into the eyes of the man he is, was, and could be. Winner of the Prix Ringuet and adapted into a feature film, Mirror Lake is a masterpiece of Michaud’s canon, a playfully genre-mixing psycho-thriller that explores our mysterious existence and the bottomless self.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487005849
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press Inc
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

ANDRÉE A. MICHAUD is one of the most beloved and celebrated writers in the French language. She is, among numerous accolades, a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award and has won the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, the Prix Ringuet, and France’s Prix SNCF du Polar. Her novel Boundary was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and has been published in seven territories, and the English translation of Back Roads was a finalist for Governor General’s Literary Award. She was born in Saint-Sébastien-de-Frontenac and continues to live in the province of Quebec.

J. C. SUTCLIFFE is a translator, writer, and editor. Her translation of Back Roads by Andrée A. Michaud was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Her other translations include Mama’s Boy and Mama’s Boy Behind Bars by David Goudreault, Document 1 by François Blais, and Worst Case, We Get Married by Sophie Bienvenu. She has written for the Globe and Mail, the Times Literary Supplement, and the National Post, among others. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

PRAISE FOR ANDRÉE A. MICHAUD AND MIRROR LAKE

“From the opening pages of Mirror Lake, Andrée A. Michaud leads us along the trail of a disturbing, grave and introspective narrative. Immediately, we are sucked in, until the mystery settles with a tone that is almost cheeky . . . In this novel replete with ambiguity, Michaud reveals herself to be a master of the zany and burlesque.”— La Presse

“A novel in which everything is a mirror, everything shimmers. A work of art, and funny too. Read this book.”— CKRL FM

“With vertiginous imaginative élan, [Michaud] has crafted a hallucinatory novel in which a misanthrope shamelessly disgorges his bile on characters born of American fables and bestsellers.” — ICI Radio-Canada

“What is most remarkable in this novel, aside from the always exceptional quality of Michaud’s writing, is the total coherence of the deranged psyche of her male protagonist.” — Entre les lignes

“An exploration of madness in all its states and in the fluid space where the real and the illusory converge. A mix of film noir and surreal comedy . . . an atmosphere redolent of Stephen King mixed with a touch of Deliverance and a healthy dose of humour.”— Le Devoir

PRAISE FOR ANDRÉE A. MICHAUD AND BOUNDARY

Longlist, Scotiabank Giller Prize

“One of 2017’s finest reads yet . . . there’s no simplicity in the questions of existence at hand, but in Michaud’s Boundary, readers will find freedom: a skilled, award-winning author stretching folklore without leaping from truth and within crafting a true thriller, lyrical and satisfying, taut and beautifully told.” — National Post

“The book features two murders and a pair of sleuth figures (hence the Arthur Ellis), but it often seems less a whodunit and more a literary meditation on the impact of the killings on the small community, Boundary, where they took place (hence, the GG Award).” — Toronto Star

“While it has an element of the whodunit, this lushly written, award-winning francophone novel is literary crime-writing in which the texture of period and place takes priority.” — Sunday Times

“The style is dense, lyrical, sometimes hallucinatory, often beautiful . . . It is a difficult book to put down, but less because we are anxious for a plot resolution than because we are held in a sort of spell woven out of a particular historical moment and a timeless tension between a state of innocence and its inevitable loss.” — Reviewing the Evidence

“Speaks to a confluence of borders — geographical, cultural, and temporal — and replicates and blurs them to great effect . . . Beautifully written and compelling, this book will prompt important conversations, as will Michaud’s adept handling of cultural difference, which is well represented even in translation.” — Canadian Literature

“A dense and beautiful novel about the human condition . . . While most crime novels put the murder center stage, this one instead uses the crime to deeply examine the complexity of what it means to be alive . . . Spellbinding.” — Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW

“Atmospheric and haunting, this novel about the lingering effects of violence is impossible to turn away from.” — Foreword Reviews

“The literary thriller exists. Andrée A. Michaud is the proof.” — La Presse

“The writing is impassioned, inspired. The pace is breathless, yet punctuated by scenes of everyday family life.” — Le Devoir

“Brilliantly innovative in narrative and thrillingly readable, Boundary is a splendid novel that makes high literature out of crime and suspense. I am an instant and ardent fan of Andrée A. Michaud.” — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Editorial Reviews

[Mirror Lake] is enlightening, entertaining and thought-provoking, well presented by a talented writer (and her translator).” — Winnipeg Free Press

From the Publisher

[Mirror Lake] is enlightening, entertaining and thought-provoking, well presented by a talented writer (and her translator).

Winnipeg Free Press