Valentine in Montreal

Heather O’Neill has written nine novels. Her most recent work Valentine in Montreal provides a glimpse into the life of three women, (a fourth makes a brief appearance) and the Montreal mob. There is also the inanimate Montreal Metro (subway) that plays a significant role throughout.
Valentine lives and breaths in the Metro. She works in a Dépanneur (convenience store) in the subway. Life rolls along until she sees, follows, and eventually meets her doppelgänger (double). Yelena the double is a dancer, free spirit, and a young woman with let us say, expensive tastes. The way Yelena feeds her hunger is unique. The feeding of her desire involves the Montreal Mob, organized crime. There is a family tie with Bella a gifted (or thieving) composer who gains fame and wealth throughout her life and has some notoriety in music circles around the world. One would think that the set piece described would keep the reader turning pages at great speed.
However, the author loses steam or interest where the climax is reached. There is a buzz of activity at each subway station with chapters in the novel identified by actual subway stops along the Metro. This travelogue sadly does not add full flesh to what could have been a particularly good novel. The good becomes a fair novel with what appears to this reader as a phoned in tying up of lose ends. The illustrations within the novel (by Arizona O’Neill) add some Victorian zip to the work. The zip is not enough to bump up the clickety-clack on the tracks of a tale that seems to deflate at just the wrong time. I wanted to offer up a higher rating. The best I can muster is the following from the Mont-Royal chapter “But I still have memories that make me feel comforted and loved. And I hold those fuzzy memories tight, as though they are teddy bears.” My rating: Three stars.