A review by lawrenceevalyn
Love Enough by Dionne Brand

4.0

I wanted to read some proper ‘literature’ set in Toronto, and it turns out that most of them skip right past the chapter of genealogy that an 18thC novel leads with (as if they have no confidence I’ll be interested in their characters if I know who they are?) and it turns out I have gotten used to having characters introduced gently and become a hostile reader when these niceties are skipped — but after DNFing two others, this one sucked me in enough to get past the first few chapters and I’m pleased I read it. There’s something complex and lovely at the heart here. And I’m only growing more tantalized by the strange sense of recognition when a book describes a place I have actually been — it makes me want to keep trying Toronto novels even if they won’t bother to introduce their characters to me, in case I can see glimpses of my life in them.