Love Enough

by Dionne Brand

From our acclaimed poet and novelist: a gem of a novel that sizzles about love--between lovers, between friends, and for the places we live in--and pays homage to each moment of experience.
     Love lasted only one year but the time felt like several springs strung together.

          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 discovers: "There is nothing universal or timeless about this love business. It is hard if you really want to do it right." Brand is our greatest observer--of actions, of emotions, of the little things that often go unnoticed but can mean the turn of a day. 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.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Book Club, Lesbian

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

As 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...

Reviews

[Vic · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one writes Toronto like Dionne Brand 🥹💙

[m · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
love is or is not complicated.

[Beth Follett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six stars.

Dionne Brand moves the world centre to a handful of Toronto characters tenuously linked across the novel's duration. Like love, which, unlike Shakespeare would have it, can move with the mover, in the novel desire ebbs then flourishes, violence circles up and over, the city dawns and sometimes dies. What belongs to us in all this flow? Is there a love good enough to hold us?

I looked at a few reviews that appeared on the heels of this beautiful book's release, before I became discouraged. Not one reviewer thanked Brand for her labours. So, this is me, thanking her.

[Rebbeca Truax · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love Enough reminds me of that oil panting that sells for a million dollars and, to you, it looks like a lot of lines with no reason. I get that Brand is a poet and I like the pull of wanting to love and being afraid and I even get there are different types of love.

I think I am old fashion and I need stories to have a lead up, a climax and a wrap up. Her story lines were messy but within she definitely knows how to form words into beautiful sentences and even into paragraphs but I was caught in the paragraph to chapters.

In the end I couldn't Love Enough.

[Orlando Nicoletti · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really gorgeous book. I was also surprised and happy to realize that one of my favourite short stories is an extract from this novel: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...

[Caraid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dionne Brand’s reflections on love and intimacy force me to reflect on parts of myself that are hard to look at but I am a better person for it

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

No argument in the world is ever resolved. Resolving would suggest some liquid in which arguments could be immersed, perhaps love. But it must be love enough.

Love Enough by Dionne Brand is more a collection of impressions than a complete narrative, and as such, it made for an uneven reading experience for me.

In a multicultural city like Toronto, it's appropriate for the Trinidad-born Brand to note in passing and document the Somali economist who speaks five languages and now drives a cab, the Chilean journalist who fled Pinochet's regime, the broken woman who wanders the streets and washes her hands and face with Clorox. Many domestic scenes are lingering in my brain: the middle-aged Italian woman who seeks respectability in dowdy housedresses when her daughter goes wild (a wildness she secretly supports); the thug who pressures his hard-working sister for money but runs to her like a little boy when he thinks she just wants to talk; the woman who believes that the radio said the City of Toronto was sending one hundred musicians – not the one hundred policemen her partner insists that she heard – to confront the violence of the Jane and Finch neighbourhood. In all of these situations, all anyone is looking for is love; love enough.

Brand is a novelist and a poet (she was Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2009-12) and she brings a poetic sensibility to her writing. Sometimes this results in some brain-bending grasps at profundity like, “She had forgotten, of course, that when you are not in a position to order your life, disorder has its own order. Which is not like the disorder of order but like the order of disorder.” Or even more head-scratchingly:

And as much as people might think otherwise, sex is a limited idiom, not a whole language – it gets exhausted. Like a conversation that peters out into what we don't know and can't express. No doubt there are bursts of eloquence, but the prosody isn't always affective. And sometimes, just sometimes, the sex becomes less and less compelling like a stilted idiolect.

But more often, I felt like Brand was capturing the essence of Toronto and the people who live there; in a way that only this poetic sensibility could:

The best way of looking at a summer sunset in this city is in the rear-view mirror. Or better, the side mirrors of a car. So startling. The subtlety, the outerworldliness of the sunset follows you. If only you could drive that way forever. It's counterintuitive, you understand, but you get a wide measure of that quotidian beauty. If you ever travel east along Dupont Street, at that time, look back. Despite this not being a particularly handsome street – in fact it is most often grim – you may see, looking back, looking west, something breathtaking. It is perhaps because this street is so ugly; car-wrecking shops, taxi dispatch sheds, rooming houses, hardware stores, desolate all-night diners and front yards eaten up by a hundred winters' salt; it is because of all this that a sunset is in the perfect location here. Needed.

As a meditation on love and relationships, and how and where we find ourselves in the world, Brand has assembled a collection of vignettes of varying degrees of wisdom – not all equally necessary or enjoyable to this reader – and I am left somewhat unsatisfied by the lack of arc and closure for the several storylines. But, in the end, a character seems to justify this scattershot approach when she notes, “There is nothing universal or timeless about this love business”. Perhaps the only universal factor is that we all seek love enough.

[Johanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. There was no substance to this novel whatsoever.

[OK · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Love only lasted one year but the time felt like several springs strung together.” - 7

Vignettes of Torontonian lives - multiracial, hustling, working class folks. Lovely prose, a work of love and study and intelligence. Purposeful language. I really liked the passages from pg 82-85 where the narrator talks about the five airports between Toronto to Somaliland, the letting go, the escape, the rebirth, the senses coming alive, the sense of freedom to leave and start over.

But there were things lacking. I found the narrator occasionally overbearing and intrusive, the tenses inconsistent, the character motivations not entirely clear or manifest. I didn’t feel that the themes of love or loving enough were captured in a satisfying or concentrated way. I also thought the novel lacked a narrative arc/climax/plot (though maybe that’s not the point?); I think this book is a poet’s novel, both in the best and worst sense of the phrase.

3.25/5

It occurs to her that you can go to sleep at night as one person and wake up the next morning as another. It occurs to her that you can go down into the subway at Main as one person and emerge at Lansdowne another. - 19

June carries remnants of people, of things, of the world, with her. We all do, but June carries hers on the surface, her skin is iridescent with these glimpses and glances. And certainly her dreams are lustrous. Where others would filter out, June takes in. - 30

She was smarter, she thought, and so more brutal than Sydney. - 135

[Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brand's background poetry lends her to a brilliant and lyric style. The flow of her style is amazing, and makes this a quick afternoon read, if you're willing to allow the style and imagery to carry you throughout the whole novel.

That being said, if you don't get lost in the prose, the weak structure and the lack of focus is in the plot is going to become readily apparent to you. This is a collection of ideas on love, tied to three loosely-defined protagonists that can easily end up blurring together with the secondary characters from each of their respective storylines. Nothing in this novel really stuck with me, other than the fact that Brand suddenly drops one protagonist at the end, breaking the rotation of the chapters, and making that protagonist's ending feel only noticeable because of the hasty drop in the only structure the novel had.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dionne Brand is incapable of bad writing. The interweaving of these stories soaked in the bittersweet regrets of love comes the closest you can to capturing a feeling.

If Brand dwells overlong in the most autobiographical character, it's forgiveable for the beauty of the prose and of the thought and emphasizes the switch between characters and the familiarity and unknowability of them even as of your own friends.

It's a short book that feels like a meditative poem and is a wonderful diptych to the coldness of her latest and most perfect book, Theory.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have loved this to be simply the story of Sydney and June...but my wish wasn't granted. Too many characters, too many plots, too many flashbacks, and too many dream-like sequences in so short a space...it all combines to leave me immensely dissatisfied.

[Morgan Dhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Dionne Brand’s novel Love Enough, people cross paths in unlikely and tangential ways, creating and fighting for and losing relationships, finding their path through emotional tangles of past and present, obligation and expectation, all against the backdrop of the sprawling multicultural metropolis of Toronto. Indeed, the sense of place is strong enough to almost make the city one of the characters, the cycle of vignettes that illuminate the lives of the people also serving to illustrate the untidy diversity of the city itself.

The narrative swirls around its broken, struggling characters and the people who move into and out of their lives. June, a social activist who wanted to be a dancer. Bedri, one of June’s clients at the drop-in centre where she works, and his friend Ghost, petty thugs high on the aftermath of a violent carjacking. Bedri's cab-driving father, Dau'ud, a Somali immigrant who was once an economist. Lia, Ghost's sister, like him the survivor of abandonment by a drug-addicted mother, and a series of foster homes.

Characters that seek love, love enough to get by, at least. Or perhaps Brand’s title is an imperative, exhorting her characters, and by extension her readers, to love enough that the pain and rootlessness can be ameliorated, at least a little. Or a plea, a prayer, for love enough to overcome the distances between us.

The novel opens with an image of driving down Dupont Street - which is, truly, not anywhere near the prettiest street that Toronto has to offer - seeing it transformed by the vision of the sunset seen through the rear view mirror. Perhaps in that sunset, just enough beauty to alter the ugliness around it, is a parallel to the remembered touch of love, somehow just enough to keep us going through the night.

And the novel ends with these thoughts from June’s lover: “There is nothing universal or timeless about this love business, Sydney now suspects for the first time. It is hard if you really want to do it right.”

[KyaP_Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something extremely comforting about picking up a book that you can connect to by default because of a shared living experience...yet still feel as though you are learning more about yourself (and your city), and the characters as a result of the literary closeness. That is what piqued my interest about this novel.

Dionne Brand's novel Love Enough is based in Toronto--a city I was born and raised in--and it tells the stories of a few intertwining characters and their individual experiences with love and life, all to the same familiar backdrop. Toronto itself is a character in this story; for any Torontonian just the mention of speeding down the Don Valley Parkway, or gazing down Dupont street brings such recognition and an immediate understanding of at least the physical journey.

The emotional journeys are complex, and rightfully so, as each character's story unfolds. It is an authentic urban Toronto tale, highlighting the city, yet highlighting the very distinct lives of the main characters. The middle-aged June, a social worker who reflects on her lovers of the past, while reconciling her differences and connection with her current partner. There's Bedri and Ghost, the young thugs who are trying to make sense of their criminal actions while frantically navigating the streets of the city. There's the young woman Lia, battling emotions about her drug addicted mother, while daydreaming about her carefree associates out exploring the world. The characters all have a connection, yet all are grappling with issues of love on various levels, and making sense of themselves in the process.

Brand's writing style is very beautiful. Needless to say, as a former Poet Laureate of Toronto (from 2009-2012), her novel is also extremely poetic. The sadness, the anger, and the joys are described with careful precision, and poignant phrasing.

And while Toronto itself is described within the journeys of the characters, the book is fragmented as it moves between the various individuals with each chapter, and tells pieces of the story, bit by bit, jumping between locations, feelings, and story lines.

June and her lover Sydney share their space, yet have distinctly different ways of viewing the world. June is a practical woman, skeptical and realistic, while Sydney is a dreamer, a believer, and a lover. And very early in the book, Brand summarizes that despite their constant arguing and differences...love is enough to keep them together. "Perhaps..."

This theme resonates throughout the entire story...that "perhaps" love is enough.

What I love about this book is the way the elements of multicultural Toronto touch all of the figures that appear, regardless of their race. Tamil, Somali, Caribbean, Latin, or European...they range in ethnicity, yet still have a grittiness of the city that influences their daily experiences.

Along with this grittiness, is a constant feeling of longing...of yearning for something, someone, or somewhere that the characters have yet to come to terms with. While they go through their routines, work, leisure, or home life...you sense that they are all seeking more. They are seeking stability. And, of course love on some level.

"Here again, June did not understand the mysteries of intimacy..."

"Mercede's love could not hold out against her panic of never being loved enough..."

I was most moved by the character Da'uud, father of Bedri, and his thoughts about returning to his home country of Somali--his internal description of the long travel process, the switching of flights, atmosphere of the various airports, and the eventual arrival. There was a feeling of hope in this passage, when he recollected the power of being "home" and how it made all other issues insignificant, once he was back in his comfort zone.

Along with the feelings of longing for love, Da'uud's passage reflected the need for acceptance and comfort in all of the characters. Taking long journeys to find a place they were familiar with, accepted as is, and comfortable navigating. Yet despite originating from another location in some cases, the story is a reminder that they are all now a part of the big and fast-paced city of Toronto, and their moods and thought processes reflect the city life.

"The Don Valley Parkway swallows sound, it crushes time..."

You don't have to be a Torontonian to appreciate the stories, but it is the mentions of the patty shops on Eglinton West, or a character's emotional ties to the Yonge subway line for example, that makes the references so culturally significant. When the young men commit a crime, while proudly yelling out declarations of mischief...you can feel their tension as they navigate the westbound 401 highway towards the Allen Express. The city is a natural part of everyone's experience, despite what they are going through.

"But if you walk down a street and find a parallel version of your life, then you must become aware of the world and being aware of it means you can do something about it..."

There is no "happy ending" to Love Enough. This book is simply a moment in time in their lives, and concludes just as it begins...on the subject of love, and it's ambiguity. In a state of confusion, on the brink of revelation. While the characters do not change much as individuals by the book's end, you do get the sense that they are more aware of their positioning in the city and in their lives, as a result of the constant reflection and discussion about their individual battles. So while the challenges are evident, there is a bit of hope that things will work out if they continue to analyze and progress in this direction.

This was my first full reading of a Dionne Brand book (extremely long overdue), and I was moved by her writing, her ability to create feelings of sadness, yearning, and uncertainty in the city, and yet still perfectly line it with enough possibility of love, and of being loved, that it felt real.


Written by Stacey Marie Robinson for Kya Publishing's Urban Toronto Tales blog.

[Ela · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘He said she was beautiful and she took his statement as a command and did everything he asked.’

You can tell Dionne Brand is a poet at heart, because some of her phrases are truly lovely. The book had the dreamlike, sensuousness that I tend to really enjoy. However I found it a little incoherent. I picked it up randomly from the library and spent most of the book a little confused about who I reading and what the actual narrative was. I personally would have liked it to be a little more concrete in places, a little more structured, or a little clearer.

Having said that, maybe if I'd read some Brand before maybe I would have known what to expect and it would have been more accessible. I'm by no means writing her off as a writer, but on this book alone I'm left a little cold. I liked the ambiguous representation of the gay relationship but overall there seems to be too much attention paid to being interesting, the consequence being that I didn't feel all that engaged with the narrative.

[Nate Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled with Love Enough. While Brand’s prose is undeniably poetic, the structure felt disjointed, making it difficult to connect with the characters or follow the narrative. The shifting perspectives added to the confusion rather than deepening the story, leaving me more frustrated than engaged.

There are interesting themes about love, obligation, and human connection, but they get lost in the chaotic storytelling. Instead of feeling profound, the book often felt distant and inaccessible.

The intertwining stories of June, Bedri, Da’uud, and Lia seemed to beg for deeper exploration, but the fragmented structure hindered a cohesive understanding of their experiences. Despite the potential for a rich tapestry of interconnected lives, the execution fell short, leaving an impression of unfulfilled promise. While some readers may appreciate the lyrical quality and thematic ambition, I found the overall experience lacking clarity and emotional resonance.

[Sanaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brands writing style is certainly unique in a sense. I appreciated the way it was written and the similies and metaphors used. The four stories were extraordinary in their own ways however i must say i was waiting for an "ending" for each of them as there was no proper structure to their stores but that was the intention of the author i suppose. Also, the author's ability to interpret the characters emotions was quite impressive in way that was not too obvious i guess. Overall i enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to others as well.

[Steph C · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I read this book, I wondered if I had missed something. Dionne Brand won the Toronto Book Award for What We All Long For and I had enjoyed it in university. However this book sorely missed the mark in its attempt to weaves stories of an eclectic group of young people living in Toronto. It was painful to read. I hope she receives feedback so her future books may be more palatable.

[Keetha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dionne Brand is poetic but this book merged into a bit too much unsaid to totally follow. There were parts I identified with, the aging activist who doesn’t know how to be loved conventionally, but others that were too unclear to make the impact I think the boom was going for. A quick-ish read and not a waste of time, just not my favourite

[Correy Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though it’s not necessarily Brand’s best book, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It’s scattered, for sure, and somewhat aimless, but at the same time fiercely poetic and insightful. It’s nice to see this side of her: relaxed, even humorous, contemplative, while still deeply grounded in her politics. And June is surely one of Brand’s best characters. I could have used an entire novel of June.

[Christina Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of my favourite books featuring Toronto as a setting and, in a way, as a character. I read this one a while ago but I loved the intersecting characters and story lines. I would recommend this as a read for anyone. It's definitely on my to be re-read list. It's one that opens your mind to new perspectives.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the characters June and Lia but I didn't like Bedri and Ghost so much. Their stories seemed less detailed. Didn't really understand what made them tick. Overall their storyline was far less interesting.

[FiLu · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me three turns to finish this one. This one had its moments, but „Love enough“ is by far not as strong as the many other great works I loved by Brand. She’s one of my most favorite authors, but this read was not the usual „Brand ride“. To quote my „godkiddo“: Meh.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully-written love letter to both Toronto and the un-fulfillable desires that connect us.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Very poetic, in good and not so good ways.
This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read since 2014.

[alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and very fitting for me to read at this time, because it’s about falling in love in and with Toronto.

[Kyne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would've liked it if the book had been long enough

[Anthony Stillo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully written. It's a shame that such powerful prose was wasted on crafting the most insufferable protagonist and placing her in the centre of a directionless unfocused plot.

[Sheela · Rating 2 out of 5]

i really wanted to like this book and i found myself enjoying the beginning but there were many parts i found myself reading it just for the sake of finishing it, not because i enjoyed it.

[Bhern Bhern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me realize I needed to breakup with my ex