MICHELLE BERRY
REVIEWS
INTERFERENCE: a novel (ECW Press, Canada, 2014)
"Berry captures the quiet desperation of her suburbian characters in this claustrophobic, deftly plotted novel. Interference seethes with sinister possibilities." Leo Brent Robillard, author of “Leaving Wyoming,” “Houdini's Shadow,” and “Drift,” October, 2014.
"Sight, obscured and predatory and sinister, is what this book is all about. How do we see? How are we seen? Who is watching?" from Grateful for Canadian Women Writers, 4Mothers blog, September 29, 2014.
"Berry's brilliance here is to make us care about so many people all at the same time. She speaks truth about the prevalence of fear, and also battens down the anxiety with a flavour of hope that doesn't resort to sentimentality or naivete." Michael Bryson, September, 2014.
"The connections between her characters are surprising and illuminating, rounding out the book into a convincing whole. Berry shows that the domestic setting is one worth examining, that home is not always a safe place, that the tangles of family and neighbourly relationships are unfailingly interesting, particularly in a plot so charged with suspense." Kerry Clare, Pickle Me This, September, 2014.
“Michelle Berry's newest book, Inteference (ECW Press), has become one of the summer's power house novels. By teasing back the calm veneer of a small town to expose the complexity below, Berry creates a tense, witty and lifelike atmosphere.” Open Book Toronto, August 27, 2014.
“Multiple perspectives filter into the same chapter, and Michelle Berry's writing hits a rhythm akin to a stadium hush. Each line is soft and mesmerizing, her storytelling stoking the coals of a fire, each word the hypnotic crackle of a flame. Embedded within there is a vein of slithering malevolence – the dangerous ex-husband, the pedophile – but the true intrigue of Interference comes from the inner worlds of Berry's characters.” Scene Magazine, August 28, 2014.
“Berry plays literary voyeur, peeling back the polite veneer of 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. ...this novel, with its dark-humoured glimpse behind neighbourhood doors, is something to look forward to.” Publishers Weekly, August 17, 2014.
“[Berry] reminds you that no one's life is perfect, that you shouldn't be jealous of someone else's gains because you don't know what their lives might be missing. This is a book I couldn't put down, and I couldn't wait to finish to learn how the stories end.” Rating: 5 out of 5 Justine Lewkowicz, Bookends Review, Newstalk 1010, August 11, 2014.
“Interference is like a short drive through a strange suburb, that rich domain of beautiful, frustrated youth and workaday adulthood; Berry’s Parkville is a place many Canadians will recognize, but altered just slightly enough through her comic noir lens to let a little of the wit, and the fear, bleed out of the novel and into your head.” (National Post, August 1, 2014)
“My friend, this is the book for you. Ominous as its themes may be, Interference is tightly plotted and neatly executed, very nearly perfectly paced, and satisfyingly complex—but it is also escapism in its purest form, and a sheer delight to read."(The Winnipeg Review, Summer, 2014)
“In a season of manicured lawns, backyard BBQs, and the comforting illusion of middle-class normalcy, Michelle Berry's uncanny fifth novel reminds us that even the most seemingly ordinary neighbourhoods may be anything but.....Berry successfully builds suspense and plays on the reader's sense of paranoia by cleverly alluding to moments of potential disaster that never materialize.” (Quill & Quire, lead review, July, 2014).
“Interference is a terrific page-turner, but it's also a haunting, powerful look at the way families and friendships entangle us all. Berry is a sharp-eyed, engaging writer, and she deftly captures the terrors, ruptures and intimacies of one seemingly ordinary neighborhood, always finding a precarious beauty in her characters' lives. This is a book that is terrifying, startling, and very hard to put down.” Rebecca Godfrey, author of “The Torn Skirt” and “Under the Bridge”
“True to its name, Interference slyly subverts the expected and pulls back the curtain on the danger and darkness of family life in the new millennium, leading the reader through a roundabout of intersected lives from which we cannot soon recover. From cancer to child abduction, here are all the touchstones of mid-life; Berry leaves us reeling in the knowledge that more than any of these, it is fear -- brazen as ever -- that bullies its way into the game and threatens to blow the works.” Elisabeth de Mariaffi, author of “How to Get Along With Women.”
“Interference is a suspenseful, compassionate, awesomely creepy, wise, and ultimately hopeful novel. To read it is to appreciate its deftly interwoven plot lines and perceptively drawn characterizations, and to spurred to “only connect.”” - Kim Moritsugu, author of “The Oakdale Dinner Club.”
“Michelle Berry's Interference is an immaculately constructed page-turner that is also, miraculously, a redemptive meditation on loneliness and community. Read it for the beautiful writing, the cast of unique characters, and for a certain tender brutality that infuses the telling -- by turns moving, darkly funny, and ultimately warm and illuminating.” Carrie Anne Snyder, author of “The Juliet Stories,” GG finalist, 2012, as well as “Hair Hat” and “Girl Runner.”
“Michelle Berry’s Interference is a literary hockey game, the lines of meaning on the fresh arena ice criss-crossing and accumulating as her characters deke out one another in their forward momentum. An unexpected kiss, the gift of an ugly hat, a grade-school assembly on sexual predation, a facially-deformed handyman, the loss of a child -- Berry’s novel, told in her signature crystalline prose, asks us to pay attention to the moments that force us to recalibrate our game, in order to play fully awake.” Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of “The Nettle Spinner” and “All The Broken Things.”
THIS BOOK WILL NOT SAVE YOUR LIFE (Enfield & Wizenty, Canada Winner of the Colophon Fiction Prize, 2010
“a well-executed story that goes from quirky (intriguing off-centre family; blackly funny, even) to murky.... The story is well-paced (even with the necessary repetition of its Rashomon-style narrative) and the characters are unforgettable....Michelle Berry is a talent.... her willingness to navigate such challenging darkness is admirable.” Moira Dann, The Globe and Mail, 2011
“Ontario novelist and short-story writer Michelle Berry's fourth novel is a thoughtful study of a dysfunctional family in mid-1980s Toronto.... trust her. She knows more than you think she does.” Winnipeg Free Press, 2010.
“Berry is a fine writer....(this novel) has obvious parallels to Sapphire’s novel Push.” Quill and Quire, 2010.
"Heart-stopping, breathtaking, this book will not save your life, but you will never for a moment regret having your heart stopped and your breath taken. This is a story about magic – and about what happens to a family when magic goes missing, costumes no longer fit, and love disappears backstage. Michelle Berry is the best kind of magician, the kind who rather than save your life reminds you why life is worth living. A magnificent feat. " Jessica Grant, Come, Thou Tortoise.
I STILL DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU (Turnstone Press, Canada)
"This dismal yet delightful collection is a great distraction if you'd like to either shake off, or embrace, your post-winter despondency. Berry's brand of Dirty Realism is pungent, angst-ridden, florid and desperate. In other words, it's wretchedly perfect." Patricia Dawn Robertson, The Toronto Star
"Berry’s characters learn things, even if it’s something they didn’t want to know, even if it’s only about themselves. It could be something about the lengths you might go to reject your family and social circle. Maybe a long-suppressed desire for human connection. Or perhaps it’s realizing that some people just don’t want to be parents. A rock-solid collection." Uptown Magazine
"…a compelling look at the mysteries of human beings…skillfully and sensitively constructed…the most hauntingly beautiful stories…All the stories in this book have such emotional depth that they can be reread numerous times. Berry makes the strange ordinary and vice versa. Her perception and compassion are immense; flawed characters are treated with respect and an obvious desire for comprehension. I Still Don’t Even Know You combines style and substance for a richly rewarding experience. " Globe and Mail, August, 2010.
"Berry is able to shift perspectives, seemingly effortlessly, and capture the essence of each character, whether male or female, young or old, wealthy or not. The "normal" ones marry people of their own social status and follow the rules. Despite feeling that they are missing something crucially important, the characters are incapable of defying others' expectations. Berry has a gift for evoking the exact mood of each story. Whether her characters are embittered, eccentric, desperate, conventional, creative or practical, her phrasing subtly shapes each story's unique atmosphere and set of circumstances. Her ability to travel across decades, genders and ages is impressive. She grasps the heart of the matter and shapes each story's events accordingly." Winnipeg Free Press, 2010.
BLIND CRESCENT (Penguin Canada)
"But while the five families living on Blind Crescent inhabit a typically soulless world, their creator forgives them trespasses that a more cynical writer would not. The result is a bittersweet mystery that's refreshingly sympathetic.... Berry's pen pokes but refuses to break skin, because she knows her people are suffering enough." Globe and Mail, 2005
"Berry has a way of taking the seemingly obvious -- stereotypical characters, familiar storylines -- and subverting it. She's a minor master of tone, lulling the reader with humour that ranges from subtle irony to broad farce (including a wickedly gross scene involving a spanking and a soiled diaper). She'll then shift on a dime, uncovering a hidden layer of gentle sweetness or smacking the reader with a seemingly innocent situation's underlying horror." Quill & Quire, May 2005
BLUR (Random House, Canada; Weidenfeld & Nicholson, U.K.)
“What a cool read. Michelle Berry might have called her debut novel Blur but she writes with cunning clarity. Using sun-drenched Tinseltown as a piercing backdrop, Berry has created an ultra-stylish and ultra-pacy noir thriller that beautifully deconstructs the old Hollywood notions of celebrity and identity. It could easily become a cult classic because it’s a moody murder mystery perfectly in tune with the beginning of the 21st century.” Daily Mirror, four stars
“A smart and sassy story about life and death in Hollywood.” Peterborough Evening Telegraph, four stars
“High-pulp authors from Raymond Chandler to Robert Ferrigno to the newest sensation, Bruce Wagner, have taken the beautiful horror or Los Angeles -- its sheen, its viciousness, its generations of celebrity skin -- and from it derived memorable pop fiction. It takes nerve to try to join that clique of writers on the sunny side of noir, but Blur is risky business from the get-go; it invites comparisons to a long line of Sunset Boulevard standards… Berry's style is to die for -- it's cool and confident, with a kind of wary watchfulness that echoes her protagonist's personality.” Quill & Quire
“Ms. Berry’s fiction style is crisp, pointed, poignant and comic by turn. Some lovely writing, lots of passages where you find yourself thinking ‘I wish I had written that.’” Sunday Independent
“Hip, cool and written in the present tense, Blur focuses not so much on the stars but on the little people who are dying to hit the top…A good read with a substantial twist in the tale." South Wales Argus
“This could almost be a private eye novel, and first-time author Berry has fun with notions of identity, truth, love – by implication, the myths of Hollywood itself. Her prose is direct, clipped and to the point, creating a non-nonsense impression entirely suitable to the material…Recommended as a summer read.” Publishing News
“A funny and suspenseful Hollywood whodunit sure to spice up any armchair evening.” Flare
“Berry’s prose has an austere, bleached quality, as if all extraneous material has been sizzled away. What’s left is deadpan and allusive and often pretty damned funny…When Berry leaves a door tantalizingly open at the end of Blur, it feels right, because in this story the questions are more compelling, and more to the point, than answers could be.” The Globe and Mail
“Sexy, moody, snugly fashioned fiction which leaves you guessing at the end whether you’ve got it right. Infinitely seductive.” Literary Review “Berry has combined the plotting of Sunset Boulevard and the understated style of Elmore Leonard and come up with a convincing Hollywood Babylon…It’s a tough act to pull off, setting a noir-style novel in a California cess-pool. After all, the literary and cinematic precedents are formidable: Raymond Chandler, James Cain, James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential and the films of Robert Towne – particularly Chinatown and the Two Jakes. But Berry manages it with panache, imparting a suitably gritty feel to her take on L.A.” Calgary Herald
“Berry’s novel is a snappy, engaging one that provides entertainment both in its content and its lively prose.” Times-Colonist
“Berry skilfully keeps you guessing – and more importantly, keeps you caring – right to the finish.” The Vancouver Sun
“[Berry’s] witty commentary on 21st-century life arouses both thought and laughter in the reader. In addition, the psychology of each character becomes paramount to the plot instead of simply existing to explain motive. Blur is simultaneously an enjoyable read and an interesting literary experiment. Berry’s tale of greed, betrayal and murder merges old with new.” The Hamilton Spectator
WHAT WE ALL WANT (Random House, Canada; Weidenfeld & Nicholson, U.K.) Shortlisted for the 2002 Torgi Literary Awards
“What We All Want is more than a nod in the direction of master storytellers Anne Tyler and Terry McMillan…Taking a leaf out of their books by nailing characters dead-on, creating pitch perfect dialogue and effortlessly telling a big-hearted, perfectly paced story, Berry turns the potentially schmaltzy into a profound contemplation of secrets and lies. What we should all want is more of Michelle Berry.” Daily Mirror
“What most of us want is a cracking good read which is simultaneously unsettling and reassuring, able to tackle the dark side of our lives without leaving us disconsolate. We don’t always get what we want, of course, but some books, like Michelle Berry’s new novel, give more than a hint of it.” Observor
“As a black joke about life beyond the far side of despair, What We All Want is skilfully told; well shaped, exact, and easy with itself.” TLS
“I loved What We All Want. It manages that rare thing, combining the tragic with the comic without turning it into farce, and the weird with the mundane without the whole thing becoming ridiculous. There’s real tension there as the story sits on the brink of being utterly pathetic and yet at the same time pulls back to end up full of promise and hope for the future – a skilled performance, needing great control. I admire the restraint shown in the use of it. The dialogue fairly crackles – some wonder. Fully witty exchanges and the whole thing sprints along… It’s quite extraordinary the way, with such subject matter, this novel isn’t the least depressing but instead positively entertaining yet never without it retaining its dignity and compassion.” Margaret Forster
“What We All Want is deceptively simple, written with straightforward sentences and replete with dialogue. The strangest part about the novel, which deals with some of the oddest characters you could ever meet, is that it all seems uncannily normal. It’s a testament to Berry’s writing and her ability to tap into the sometimes surreal episodes people encounter in suburbia. There are some knee-slapping, darkly comical episodes in the novel, including ones relating to dead bodies.” Reuters
“Berry’s use of wit and extremes make even the most bizarre behaviour appear amusing.” Winnipeg Free Press
"Similar in some aspects to the TV series Six Feet Under, Michelle Berry's What We All Want, first published in Canada in 2001, concerns an eccentric family of three grown-up children. When their mother, an alcoholic, dies, Hilary -- who has lived with her till the end, and who has covered the floor with pebbles and dolls -- coerces her brothers and her only admirer, Dick Mortimer, an undertaker, to bury their mother in the garden. Less satirical than Waugh, Berry's characters and situations are beautifully drawn…Death comes to us all; perhaps it's as well to prepare in the company of writers such as these." The Glasgow Herald
“Berry has grown into a writing style that is uniquely hers: a kind of literary pointilism which is simple and tight at first glance, but more complicated and layered when you stand back from it.” The Globe and Mail
“The novel culminates in an illegal funeral in the backyard of the Mount house. Madness and sweetness ensue, and we are left with just the right mixture of hope and hopelessness…What We All Want is a satisfying portrait of a family, a town, a society in crisis. What we want is for the Mounts to succeed, to live good lives. The same things we want for ourselves and our own brothers and sisters and daughters and sons.” The Edmonton Journal
“If you liked the bizarre goings-on in Barbara Gowdy’s Mister Sandman or the offbeat characters in Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven and Play the Monster Blind, you will savour Michelle Berry’s first novel, What We All Want….Berry is a skilled writer and her powers of observation remain intact as she explores a suburban world filled with the familiar, as well as the grotesque. Her darkly humorous angle of vision lightens the novel’s tone and gives the characters a singular appeal….Berry’s prose is refreshingly spare in this novel, her themes implicit rather than announced.” London Free Press
“Michelle Berry is full of creative energy. She also has an engaging sense of humor, which she directs with care, keeping it submerged and controlled so that it never breaks through the stage direction of her prose…The story is well structured, and ends with a rising comic element of completely winning eccentricity.” Exit Toronto Women’s Newspaper
“In What We All Want, Berry seems to recognize, as her strange story unfolds, that sometimes happiness is a more interesting and complicated outcome than despair. Sometimes things do get better – if only for a moment or two. What We All Want has its moment, and Berry makes the most of it.” Montreal Gazette
“Her characters’ quirks and habits make them the kind of folks an Anne Tyler fan would embrace. It’s clear, however, that this is a writer who is spreading her wings.” Quill and Quire
“In the gallery of eccentric novels, this new work from Michelle Berry holds a determined place. A quick and compelling read, What We All Want is a quirky exploration of the bizarre condiments of family life, and how death brings together the different pieces of one family puzzle in a strange rearrangement of that institution’s terrible failures…Best of all are the parts of the novel engaged with the mortician’s trade, the actual physical details that describe the body’s last rites. These are simply fascinating.” Calgary Herald
“Berry’s fine writing shows that she understands that the space between the words can be important and that what is implied speaks volumes.” National Post
“Berry uses a spare and direct style to convey her characters’ dilemmas. Hilary feels lonely, Thomas guilty, Billy useless. And she has a way of letting the situation speak for itself, without cluttering things up with intricate or adjective-heavy wordplay…This is a really good first novel.” NOW Magazine
“This book sustains an intent and courageous gaze into real, unglamorous, unspectacular death. Rebecca Mount, bald and wizened with jaundice, is somebody’s dead mother, and you feel it that way.” Vancouver Sun
“Berry’s mastery of dialogue and her subtle evocation of sight and smell make her darkly comic trip inside the looking glass as easy as tucking away that extra slice of Christmas cake.” Elm Street
“Her spare, sparkly dialogue and eye for the perfect, telling detail make the novel richly visual.” Toronto Life
“What We All Want is an endearing and amusing novel that is bizarre while remaining credible.” FFWD
“Starting with a gathering of three siblings for their mother Becka’s funeral, What We All Want is one of those deceptively simple novels that grows ever more complex as you dive beneath the surface.” Eye
“The characters in Michelle Berry’s first novel resemble guests on a Jerry Springer show in one respect – you’ll be sure to feel better about your own life after meeting them.” Toronto Star
“This book is a good read that delivers more than unremittingly grim social commentary. Its cynicism is infused with hope; social realism butts up against the grotesque, making the fiction vital and playful.” Calgary Straight
MARGARET LIVES IN THE BASEMENT (Somerville House, Canada)
"A second story collection at once disconcerting and enticing…Michelle Berry's second collection of short stories in three years is distinguished by its quirky perspective on the everyday lives of not-so common characters and the calculated precision of its prose… Readers who relish the position of literary voyeur will delight in the remote voice and cool style of these stories… In Berry's hand, ordinary circumstances are rendered as extraordinary, unsettling events and the reader must beware. Although "nothing seems to be different than before. Nothing has changed…Nothing seems out of place…," the world has reshaped itself in the brief span of 200 pages." The Toronto Star, August 22, 1998
"Like a young Flannery O'Connor, Berry has the uncanny ability to present characters who effectively demonstrate the constant battle between the better angels and ugly little demons of our nature. Balancing humour and darkness, Berry explores the tragic limitations of individuals…The Verdict: funny, true, tragic and ultimately endearing." Quarry Magazine, August 1998
"…shot through with suspense, tightly wound and written…Berry's prose is terse and swift, full of killer one-liners and acerbic observations. The stories…are set in Any Canadian City, but driven by people who are more than commonly desperate, people for whom eye contact is painful. All Berry's characters have lost something: wives, sons, minds, sisters, bathing suits, trust, hope. Their attempts to recover and sort out what went wrong, and how to fix things, don't work out – at least not in the way you'd expect… Berry deftly, repeatedly, shows just how clueless and creepy we can be…" The Georgia Straight, May 21-28, 1998
"[S]ubterranean murkiness there is, but the stories in Michelle Berry's second collection are rather more flammable, forged in the brilliance of summer heatwaves. These 11 stories stick to the skin, and not always pleasantly, as characters sweat and strip down… Berry graphically evokes smells, walls smeared with tobacco smoke, corpses in the woodshed. But while we may be repelled, we read on, in the grip of the characters' discordant realities and expectations… For such a young writer, still in her 20s, Berry shows remarkable control of her medium, walking a fine line between the comic and tragic. Her ear for dialogue is uncommonly good; these seem as much one-act plays as stories – motel Ionesco, Albee under the apple tree." Quill & Quire, April 1998
"With her latest collection of short stories…Michelle Berry has joined the ranks of Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. The eleven well-crafted stories…explore that core of human existence: the relationship between men and women, their natural pair bonding urge…" Beach Metro News, June 1998
"…stylish and witty…a good ear for dialogue that brings her characters to life…engaging and provocative" The Leader Post, Regina, SK, June 1998
Chosen for the Coles/Smithbooks Made in Canada series, April 1998:
"Eleven short stories of shining innocence, tinged with an unexpected shadow of darkness. Witty one moment, wrenching the next – splendid prose from a hot new writer."
"Throughout the eleven stories, Michelle Berry demonstrates an astute comprehension of what it is what draws people together and rips them apart. Strangeness is seldom so thoughtfully summoned." Front & Centre Magazine, October 1998
“moments of quiet brilliance" The Ottawa Citizen, August 1998
HOW TO GET THERE FROM HERE (Turnstone Press, Canada)
"[L]ike viewing your own image in an x-ray machine. It is the world of the familiar turned inside out, all the hidden illnesses and weaknesses revealed to the naked eye… Berry offers up the realm of the ordinary for readers, but it is the ordinary transformed into the unsettling… It is the elusive nature of…escape that the collection's title reflects. Each of Berry's characters longs to be somewhere else… Perhaps the most startling and disturbing revelation of Berry's lies in her depiction of the interaction between people. There is no unmediated contact here; instead, human contact is filtered through memory, the media, or just plain fantasy, leaving Berry's characters adrift in a sea of shallow sound bites and immaterial daydreams… The first collection of stories from Berry is quiet, but has a lingering presence." Paragraph: The Canadian Fiction Review, December 1997
"There is a fin-de-siecle jitteriness to the characters, whether they are the woman in a supermarket who does two gay men a
kind turn while a sort of moral meltdown goes on around them, a cop who loses control of a situation, or a jogger who is temporarily unhinged by something she sees on a trail in the encroaching darkness. This is clear, finely muscled prose… Small, beautifully wrought tales about moments, each pregnant with meaning…" Quill & Quire
"a shocking subtlety that stays with the reader as a sort of afterglow…the subtlety with which Berry is capable of communicating is startling and stimulating" The Toronto Star
"an uncommon gift for narrative" The Globe and Mail
"a penchant for crafting alluring stories from what I'll call down-time. Her fiction sneaks up on you. The stories, which centre on simple, plausible characters, seem to rise out of moments when we least expect fiction to be born: in line at the grocery store, the morning after a party, at home with a cold watching Donahue, driving to visit a sister, running through a park. The reader gets the sense that something is about to happen, or that something did happen, but the prelude or aftermath (down-time) suddenly intervenes and proves more interesting… [D]oes this make for good fiction? Absolutely." Black Cat 115, October 1997