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WHAT WE ALL LONG FOR / LOVE ENOUGH: TWO TORONTO NOVELS
Together in a single volume, two beloved novels by one of our most celebrated and important writers.
Tuyen is an aspiring artist and the daughter of Vietnamese parents who've never recovered from losing one of their children while in the rush to flee Vietnam in the 1970s. She rejects her immigrant family's hard-won lifestyle, and instead lives in a rundown apartment with friends--each of whom is grappling with their own familial complexities and heartache.
By turns thrilling and heartbreaking, Tuyen's lost brother--who has since become a criminal in the Thai underworld--journeys to Toronto to find his long-lost family. As Quy's arrival nears, tensions build, friendships are tested, and an unexpected encounter will forever alter the lives of Tuyen and her friends. Gripping at times, heartrending at others, What We All Long For is an ode to a generation of longing and identity, and to the rhythms and pulses of a city and its burgeoning, questioning youth. Winner of the Toronto Book Award.
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In Love Enough, the sharp beauty of Brand's writing draws us effortlessly into the intersecting stories of her characters caught in the middle of choices, apprehensions, fears. Each of the tales here--June's, Bedri's, Da'uud's, Lia's opens a different window on the city they all live in, mostly in parallel, but occasionally, delicately, touching and crossing one another. Each story radiates other stories. In these pages, the urban landscape cannot be untangled from the emotional one; they mingle, shift and cleave to one another.
The young man Bedri experiences the terrible isolation brought about by an act of violence, while his father, Da'uud, casualty of a geopolitical conflict, driving a taxi, is witness to curious gestures of love and anger; Lia faces the sometimes unbridgeable chasms of family; and fierce June, ambivalent and passionate with her string of lovers, now in middle age There is nothing universal or timeless about this love business. It is hard if you really want to do it right. At once lucid and dream-like, Love Enough is a profoundly modern work that speaks to the most fundamental questions of how we live now.
Tuyen is an aspiring artist and the daughter of Vietnamese parents who've never recovered from losing one of their children while in the rush to flee Vietnam in the 1970s. She rejects her immigrant family's hard-won lifestyle, and instead lives in a rundown apartment with friends--each of whom is grappling with their own familial complexities and heartache.
By turns thrilling and heartbreaking, Tuyen's lost brother--who has since become a criminal in the Thai underworld--journeys to Toronto to find his long-lost family. As Quy's arrival nears, tensions build, friendships are tested, and an unexpected encounter will forever alter the lives of Tuyen and her friends. Gripping at times, heartrending at others, What We All Long For is an ode to a generation of longing and identity, and to the rhythms and pulses of a city and its burgeoning, questioning youth. Winner of the Toronto Book Award.
____________
In Love Enough, the sharp beauty of Brand's writing draws us effortlessly into the intersecting stories of her characters caught in the middle of choices, apprehensions, fears. Each of the tales here--June's, Bedri's, Da'uud's, Lia's opens a different window on the city they all live in, mostly in parallel, but occasionally, delicately, touching and crossing one another. Each story radiates other stories. In these pages, the urban landscape cannot be untangled from the emotional one; they mingle, shift and cleave to one another.
The young man Bedri experiences the terrible isolation brought about by an act of violence, while his father, Da'uud, casualty of a geopolitical conflict, driving a taxi, is witness to curious gestures of love and anger; Lia faces the sometimes unbridgeable chasms of family; and fierce June, ambivalent and passionate with her string of lovers, now in middle age There is nothing universal or timeless about this love business. It is hard if you really want to do it right. At once lucid and dream-like, Love Enough is a profoundly modern work that speaks to the most fundamental questions of how we live now.
640 pages, Paperback
Published January 7, 2020
3 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Dionne Brand
61 books488 followersAs a young girl growing up in Trinidad, Dionne Brand submitted poems to the newspapers under the pseudonym Xavier Simone, an homage to Nina Simone, whom she would listen to late at night on the radio. Brand moved to Canada when she was 17 to attend the University of Toronto, where she earned a degree in Philosophy and English, a Masters in the Philosophy of Education and pursued PhD studies in Women’s History but left the program to make time for creative writing.
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,” she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read’ New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.”
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/dionne-b...
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,” she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read’ New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.”
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/dionne-b...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 8, 2024
I’ll try my best not to spoil anything major
Read this for a school assignment, the first half was the more interesting side, but even so only some plot lines
were interesting for example the plot line around tuyen’s parents and their loss (not in a death kind of way but a literal way, they lost him) of their first son quy, there were about 7 or 8 chapters spread apart throughout the book, these are special chapters just called quy (while the normal ones are just numbered) revolving around quy, as we see his perspective of his struggles, the special chapters are a nice break from the other plots as it was different than the rest, changing from third person to first. That’s all I’ll say without spoiling any details
The second book (second half) was less interesting in my opinion, again some interesting plot points but again, not too interested, but nothing noteworthy to say since I didn’t have the second half as part of my assignment
Also idk if I’m mature enough but I didn’t like the chapters revolving around sex, some chapters went into good detail
And while I said I liked tuyens plot, I must admit I don’t like tuyen as a character, for context tuyen likes woman, specifically her friend Carla, but Carla… likes men so I don’t know why tuyen keeps trying to persuade her. No is no, and tuyen becomes borderline creepy/ makes me uncomfortable with some of the things she does but the book doesn’t treat it as wrong or weird with some of these things
personally not my cup of tea
Not like the book was bad, I’m sure it is a good book but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it, nor would I say it was stellar in my opinion.
Read this for a school assignment, the first half was the more interesting side, but even so only some plot lines
were interesting for example the plot line around tuyen’s parents and their loss (not in a death kind of way but a literal way, they lost him) of their first son quy, there were about 7 or 8 chapters spread apart throughout the book, these are special chapters just called quy (while the normal ones are just numbered) revolving around quy, as we see his perspective of his struggles, the special chapters are a nice break from the other plots as it was different than the rest, changing from third person to first. That’s all I’ll say without spoiling any details
The second book (second half) was less interesting in my opinion, again some interesting plot points but again, not too interested, but nothing noteworthy to say since I didn’t have the second half as part of my assignment
Also idk if I’m mature enough but I didn’t like the chapters revolving around sex, some chapters went into good detail
And while I said I liked tuyens plot, I must admit I don’t like tuyen as a character, for context tuyen likes woman, specifically her friend Carla, but Carla… likes men so I don’t know why tuyen keeps trying to persuade her. No is no, and tuyen becomes borderline creepy/ makes me uncomfortable with some of the things she does but the book doesn’t treat it as wrong or weird with some of these things
personally not my cup of tea
Not like the book was bad, I’m sure it is a good book but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it, nor would I say it was stellar in my opinion.
March 19, 2024
What we all long for: 2.5 stars. Not really for me. Felt like there was such a build up for very little and a lot of random tangents on things that didn’t matter. I enjoyed reading each persons struggling childhood growing up as an immigrant in Toronto. I didn’t however like the main character lol.
November 7, 2023
Brand seamlessly brings together the personal and political in such a profound way. What We All Long For is complex, beautiful, and devastating all at the same time.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews