Enough

Finished September 16

Enough by Kimia Eslah

This novel looks at three Iranian-Canadian women from different generations and shows us how they experience workplace racism and sexism, giving particularly emphasis to microaggressions. 

Sameera Jahani is a millennial and has just been hired as the manager of the Web and Digital Communications team at the City of Toronto. She lives with her partner Shannon in the queer village neighbourhood. 

Faiza Hosseini is the director of Program Support at the city, a position she's reached over many years at the city. She lives with her husband Robert, an executive who works less onerous hours, her mother Bibi, and her daughters Mina, sixteen, and Pari, seven. Mina is her daughter with Ali, her first husband, the one she emigrated from Iran with. 

Goldie Sheer has just been hired for her first job since graduating university, a three-month contract as a database administrator with the city. She lives at home with her parents, her younger brother Hussain, and her older brother Dariush. Dariush has recently moved back home after a relationship breakup and has had trouble adjusting to life in Canada, while the two younger children were born in Canada.

The three work in different departments, but their paths cross, and they come together over similar social issues. 

Faiza reports to the city manager, Howard Crawley, a man who seems much more forward-thinking than he is, partly because he has the tendency to farm his work out to those willing to do it as part of advancing their careers. Faiza is the latest one to do this, and she has been working as his assistant in all but name recently. She has just finished putting together a presentation on EDI initiatives, and applies formally for a recently posted position as Howard's assistant. 

Faiza has a great management style, focused on teamwork and respect, and she has built allies across departments. One of these is Voula Stavros, the director of Customer Service, who plays a key role in the novel. Bibi has a different expectation of what being a mother means than Faiza does, and this brings in a fourth generation in social expectations. 

Goldie is bright and looks for opportunities, and this both helps and hinders her in her new position. We also see her with her best friend Issa, who is black and experiences more blatant racism than Goldie does. 

Sameera is shown both in situations where she speaks up and situations where she doesn't, and this is something that she must think about in terms of her future. 

Throughout the novel, Farsi dialogue is mixed into the conversations and shown in italics, with English following where necessary for understanding. This is done in such a natural and seamless way and I really found this so helpful in giving a sense of culture, and showing how similar we are. 

I really enjoyed this book and also found it touched on issues that need to be discussed. This would be a really interesting choice for a book club.