book ID question

It's probably not what you're after, but there is a Milan Kundera book which deals with a similar theme. I can't remember exactly, but I think the city was Paris and the book might have been called 'Identity'.

Do you know roughly when the book was written/set, gear?

Sebald?

no, not kundera...i think the book was set in the early 20th century and was written around that time. it was an author i had never heard of before and didn't seem to have a large body of work, but this novel was generally well-regarded.

wait, i figured it out!

the novel is Bruges-La-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, description as follows:

Hugues Viane is a widower who has turned to the melancholy, decaying city of Bruges as the ideal location in which to mourn his wife and as a backdrop for the narcissistic wanderings of his disturbed spirit. He becomess obsessed with a young dancer whom he believes is the double of his beloved wife. The consequent drama leads Hugues to psychological torment and humiliation, culminating in a deranged murder. This 1892 work is a poet’s novel, dense, visionary and haunting. Bruges, the ‘dead city’, becomes a metaphor for Hugues' dead wife as he follows its mournful labyrinth of streets and canals in a cyclical promenade of reflection and allusion -- the ultimate evocation of Rodenbach’s lifelong love affair with the enduring mystery and mortuary atmosphere of Bruges.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1903517230.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg