He’s a late-middle-aged ex-academic or ex-accountant or someone who spent his life at a desk, who once might have been a real fireplug, like Mickey Rooney, but who, at sixty-plus years, looks like a hound in a sweater.

Still, I appreciated fine eye and ear for figurative language that Michael Redhill displays, especially simile. As I feared, I found the fantasy angle distasteful.

Some reviews mentioned a fantasy element to the book, which worried me a little - I have no taste for that genre - but I like the notion of doubles and I’d enjoyed a previous book by Redhill (pictured above), Martin Sloane. Described as a “darkly comic literary thriller about a woman who fears for her sanity,” the book sounded like a perfect holiday read. It was the promise of a doppelganger that led me to read the award-winning novel Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill. I write today about a series of similes from Michael Redhill… 'But right now, I can row my own boat.I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. 'Living as a writer, you sometimes surf on credit and goodwill, and this will make me a much better risk for the various people who may have to help me in the future,' he said. 'I was a little more emotional than I was expecting to be - but life doesn't prepare you for receiving a $100,000 cheque and then addressing people live across the nation, so I think I will probably have no memory of this evening in about 20 minutes, just to protect myself,' he said with a laugh in an interview after the awards ceremony. Redhill seemed shocked as he accepted the prize and gave a tearful speech thanking his supporters as well as the late businessman Rabinovitch. Redhill was named winner of the $100,000 honour at a televised Toronto gala Monday night, the first Giller Prize awarded since the death of founder Jack Rabinovitch in August.īellevue Square tells the story of a woman who tries to track down her doppelganger following rumours that someone who looks like her hangs out at Bellevue Square, a park in Toronto's Kensington Market.

Michael Redhill has won the Giller Prize, Canada's richest literary award, for his novel Bellevue Square.