Blind Crescent

Sarah Robertson is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

In this surreal, tightly written, and hugely entertaining black comedy,
novelist and short-story writer Michelle Berry ruthlessly excavates the
lives of disaffected suburbanites who occupy six houses on the
cul-de-sac of Blind Crescent.

As she struggles with the burdens of single motherhood, Holly obsesses
about death and the husband who walked out on her. Migraine-prone
Jackson plays nursemaid to his aged, cantankerous parents and delivers
groceries to Mr. Walcott, an obese shut-in. Jill, a perfectionist who
could be Bree Van De Kamp’s twin sister, frets about her loveless
marriage, her hypercritical housekeeper, and the neighbourhood’s
surfeit of “undesirables.” Jill’s husband, Oliver, lusts after
teenage Grace. A mysterious squatter moves into the house of a man who
committed suicide.

On Blind Crescent, relationships between neighbours and within families
are prickly at best. Voyeurism is the preferred mode of communication.
As an unnamed sniper wreaks havoc on a nearby highway, the residents of
this hermetically sealed community doggedly watch one other. Oliver sits
in his den, binoculars trained on a thong-wearing Grace. Grace’s
brother monitors neighbourhood events from the vantage of his favourite
tree. Through his front window the lonely widower Mr. Walcott observes
the squatter “staring out at him staring in” and imagines a kinship
between the two; “[a]ll this spying,” he reflects, “has given his
life new meaning.” Echoing the deep-seated paranoia of George W.
Bush’s America, Blind Crescent is rife with suspicions about the
identify of the highway sniper: Holly’s ex-husband, Jackson, and
Oliver’s gardener are the odds-on favourites.

The novel concludes with a flashback to a neighbourhood Christmas
party. There are minor discontents, but the prevailing mood is one of
camaraderie and hopefulness. As readers, we are keenly, poignantly,
aware that this rare moment of grace is about to be shattered by news of
a neighbour’s suicide—an ominous turning point for the denizens of
Blind Crescent.