Neighbourhood Watch

by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette

This book is so beautifully written that it’s hard to find the right words to talk about it. The subject is raw, painful, and difficult to absorb because the lives of the characters are debilitated at every turn. Everyone is victim to poverty, neglect and lack of care or opportunity, yet the writing is so full of love, respect, and beauty that it opened and broke my heart at the same time. To describe the prose as poetic is misleading, as the language is simple, and the stories straightforwardly told as a montage of short scenes. Amazingly, the book is a translation from French—inspired by the author’s experiences as a Big Sisters mentor to a girl in Montreal’s Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. I often avoid translations for fear of missing the subtleties of the original language, but this one is superb.