Knockoff Eclipse is a short story collection firmly rooted in the streets and landmarks of Montreal and its many neighbourhoods and subcultures. Bull’s characters shine with the dirt of digging just deep enough.

In the titular story “The Knockoff Eclipse,” we’re transported to a future world where women’s clothing quite literally advertises their supposed wants and desires. Wanda and Henry meet in an old divebar turned trendy futurist café. “I used to be a model. But I got tired of people looking at me,” she tells Henry. The theme of looking or being looked at runs through the entire collection, female bodies and the women who inhabit them must constantly contend with the masculine gaze, which is often internalized in such a way that it seems inescapable.

Dark like Duras, flippant comme Sagan, with elements of the surreal running through, these Montreal stories are modern feminist fables for the reader who is decidedly uninterested in upholding the moral of the story as it’s been traditionally told.

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