Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake

Translated by: Sutcliffe, J. C.

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.

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.

Published By House of Anansi Press Inc — Mar 2, 2021
Specifications 384 pages | 5.25 in x 8 in
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Excerpt
Written By

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.

Written By

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.

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

” —Winnipeg Free Press