cover image Interference

Interference

Michelle Berry. ECW Press (Legato Publishers Group; U.S. dist.; Jaguar Book Group, Canadian dist.), $18.95 trade paper (282p) ISBN 978-1-77041-198-2

In her fifth novel, Berry plays literary voyeur, peeling back the polite veneer of the middle-class to expose a chaotic underbelly. Weaving myriad narratives into an impressive whole, the book submits that a community is actually an arena of unfocused fear. Tom, living in a world where "it's rare to even see a wheelchair," worries that a disfigured transient helping bag his leaves is a potential threat. Twelve-year-old Becky is a germaphobe haunted by a boy no one else sees. Claire struggles through cancer recovery while husband Ralph experiences bouts of extreme forgetfulness, hoping that "everything he forgets now%E2%80%A6will not matter. Ever." Berry waltzes these and other characters towards a hinted-at climax of danger and resolution, making it clear that paranoia, whether real or imagined, is a core aspect of the human condition, one that we not only cannot avoid but sometimes actively cultivate. Near its end, Claire comes to believe "that this is what cancer does to you, that this is what growing older does to you, that this is what life does to you %E2%80%94 it slowly robs you of something to look forward to." Perhaps so, but this novel, with its dark-humoured glimpse behind neighbourhood doors, is something to look forward to. Agent: Chris Bucci, Anne McDermid & Associates. (Aug.)