In Mona Awads novels, the quest for perfection sends women over the edge.
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Once it had ended, she couldnt find the exit and wandered through the hotels maze of hallways.
I just wanted to get out, she said.
When I did finally leave, the sun was setting and the sky was very red.
And I realized I had left my bracelet and would have to go back.
The idea scared her, but she went inside again.
And she thought,Maybe I can use this fear in a book.
Just as her recently deceased mother once did, Belle approaches these treatments with grim determination.
Her voice is musical and gracious, a little like a French Canadian Disney princess.
Now Im on the other side, where Im still vulnerable.
But I know from experience there are things my face cant take.
It terrifies me to my core, she said.
Theres how beauty can slip into horror so fast.
I mean, its almost painfully obvious.
Like Belle, Awad was born in Montreal to an Egyptian father and a white French Canadian mother.
Her parents divorced when she was 7, and she and Nina lived on Nuns Island in Montreal.
Raised an Anglophone child in a mostly French-speaking family, Mona felt isolated.
It was so important to my survival, she said.
I loved the interest in beauty.
I loved the interest in being over the top.
I loved the interest in melancholy.
And she really loved the dry sense of humor about it all.
Meanwhile, she was writing.
Poetry was her entry point.
That became her first published book in 2016,13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.
Three years later, she publishedBunny,about a clique of cutesy M.F.A.
I couldnt believe how much the pain affected my daily life, she said.
Awads own pain still hasnt gone away completely, though it has eased with time.
Its a longing to look in the mirror and see someone you recognize, she said.
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