Mirror Lake

January 25, 2021
Michaud (The Last Summer) channels David Lynch for a surreal and creepy story involving a murder plot and shifting identities on a Maine lake. The narrator, a misanthropic 50-something Quebecois retiree named Robert Moreau, is forced to cope with the insistent friendliness of neighbor Bob Winslow after moving to Mirror Lake. The sheriff, who uncannily resembles Tim Robbins, responds to a call about a drowning but doesn’t find a body. Robert moves sex worker Anita into his cabin after seeing her with a black eye; learns the sheriff, whom he’s taken to calling Tim Robbins, is her boyfriend; and grows suspicious of everyone. After escaped killer Jack Picard arrives at the cabin and demands Robert find him a gun, Bob becomes convinced they are living out the plot of a novel titled The Maine Attraction. Then a body washes ashore and Robert slips and knocks his head on a rock. He wakes up nearly a year later in the hospital but appears to be someone else. While it takes a while to get going, the pervasive melancholy and lyrical precision evoke the mood of art house cinema, to which there are many references. This twisty, slow-burning novel will reward the patient reader willing to be swept along.

March 1, 2021
This delightfully strange genre-bender uses a convergence of crimes as the catalyst for a Groundhog Day-like exploration of human connection. Robert Moreau leaves Montreal for solitude at Maine's Mirror Lake, only to be immediately assaulted by his neighbor Bob Winslow's good-natured company. Despite Robert's curmudgeonly attitude, the pair ease into an unlikely friendship, and Robert's retreat remains blissfully uneventful until he returns from an evening with alluring Anita Swanson and finds Winslow at his cottage, claiming that a stranger has stolen Robert's boat and drowned in Mirror Lake. Sheriff Tim Robbins clearly suspects that Robert was involved in the John Doe's drowning. But there's not much he can do until the lake releases Doe's body, casually warning Robert and Bob to look out for the escaped convict on the loose in the area. When Robbins, the fugitive, an affable gangster, and a surprise guest all meet at Robert's cabin, the brouhaha results in a narrative identity crisis of epic proportions. Close reading is required here, but the reward is an impactful, enlightening conclusion.

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