Midlife crisis leads to risky hobby

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This article was published 02/09/2023 (1120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the increasing use of digital keypads for door locks, the art of actually picking a lock is becoming antiquated — like pinning dead insects to a display board or creating a picture using human hair. However, Beatrice Billings is so bored with her upper middle-class life that she begins breaking into strangers’ houses during a long, hot summer in Toronto.

Breaking and Entering is Canadian journalist, novelist, historian and children’s book author Don Gillmor’s fourth novel. He won the Governor General’s Award for English-language non-fiction in 2019 for his memoir, To the River: Losing My Brother, as well as other awards for his writing.

In Breaking and Entering Gillmor examines the rather sterile life of 49-year-old Beatrice (or Bea). Married to Sangster (Sang), they are empty nesters as Thomas, their only child, has left home to attend his first year of university in Montreal. Bea worries about Thomas’ future and his happiness.

Bea runs an art gallery but doesn’t seem concerned over whether or not her business is profitable. Instead, she treats the gallery as somewhere for her to hang out during the workday. This is likely because, as a professor, Sang earns enough money to keep their household in the black.

Part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” Bea is dealing with her mother Dorothy’s growing dementia. Bea resents the fact that Ariel, her only sibling, lives in Chicago and feels she’s entitled to regularly call Bea and harangue her about whether or not she’s properly caring for their mother. When a sudden thunderstorm turns an outing to a park into an ordeal during which Dorothy’s arm is broken, Ariel feels her criticism of her younger sister’s abilities is justified.

Bea’s primary personal problem is plain old boredom, which is aggravated by the extremely hot weather besetting Toronto from spring into the fall. She sees no end to the unpleasant heat, or to her mundane life. She suspects Sang is having an affair since their love life has disappeared.

What is a bored middle-aged woman to do? Take a walk on the wild side.

In Bea’s case, this involves joining a locksmith club attended by a strange assortment of people interested in learning about lock picking. She strikes up a friendship with one of the members, Will, and warns him that he shouldn’t yield to the temptation to use his newly acquired skills to break into houses. However, that’s exactly what she starts to do.

Bea realizes that if she wears ordinary clothes and walks at a normal pace around a residential neighbourhood during the day, she’s almost invisible to others. This obvious disguise allows her to case a house, watching the owners’ regular weekday routine, and learning when their house will be empty.

She soon finds that most houses hold interior secrets, such as a basement filled with boxes of stolen appliances or doomsday survival supplies. The only item she ever takes is an expensive designer dress that becomes part of her normal wardrobe.

There is a growing sense throughout the book that Bea will be caught somehow and publicly punished for her crimes. She is forced to face her mother’s mortality, the possible end of her marriage and the threat of her son quitting his studies to return home.

Breaking and Entering focuses on the quintessential pursuit of happiness. In this book, the pursuit is set firmly within modern Toronto’s middle-class society, which somewhat reduces its broad appeal. Gillmor is a skilled writer; in this novel, however, his characters seem predictable and generally unlikable.

Andrea Geary is a freelance writer in Winnipeg.