Why a Booktrail?
2000s: If someone told you your doppelganger was nearby you’d go and look wouldn’t you?
Bellevue Square
What you need to know before your trail
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
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
Toronto
Kensington Market
A very popular and hip, bohemian place in the city of Toronto.It has a mix of everything being just on the edge of Chinatown:
Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market was crowded by Mexicn, Chilean, Middle Eastern and Portuguese businesses
The last time I’d been in the market – years ago – its identity as a counter cultural space had already been scrubbed clean. It was a hodgepodge now, but something was happening: it was young like it had once been , the coffee was excellent….”
No matter your approach, once you crossed College Street or Spadina Avenue or Dundas, you were somewhere else when you entered Kensington Market
Kensington Market’s energy was hustle too,plus bustle, a lot of movement right in from of your eyes and a shudder of rattle behind it. Countercultural, but bloody and raw”
The bookshop
Sadly fictional but there are a few bookshops to find and spend an hour or two, maybe a day or two lost in.
Bellevue Square (now being remodelled)
The square is sadly being redesigned and modelled different. There is a moment however in the book where the statute of the actor Al Waxman stands beside the bench. He starred in the long-running TV series called incidentally, The King Of Kensington:
New faces sit on the bench beside the white-capped Al Waxman statue. Bronze is a cruel material. It makes you look that little bit deader.
Streetview Maps
A) Toronto - Bellevue Square
B) Toronto - Kensington Market
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer
This is going to be one of those books which divides and conquers. Some will love it, others won’t get it. I wasn’t sure what camp I was in for a while reading this and it’s only afterwards that I realise I’m in the first. It’s a surreal read but one which really gets inside your head and messes with your thoughts which is apt given the themes in the book.
I had to read this slowly and then often would flick back to something I thought I’d read but wasn’t sure anymore. Again, very apt for the themes of mental health in the book. I felt the writing was sparse and deliberate in order to bring out the threads of identity, reality, and consciousness.
The book is surreal in its rhythm which started off as one thing and then ended as another. It’s not like any book I’ve read – it keeps you on your toes with its many changes!
I loved revisiting Toronto and its neighbourhoods. I lived near to Kensington Market and boy has the author captured the spirit and essence of that place. Shame the park has changed as I remember many an afternoon sitting there reading. It was a joy to revisit it and if I ever go back I’m sure I will now be wondering if I have a doppel ganger.
An homage to the city and its people, to the spirit of the city and a story about who and what we are, beneath the surface.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Bellevue Square
Destination : Toronto Author/Guide: Michael Redhill Departure Time: 2000s
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