Farzana Doctor’s Book Launch: Six Metres of Pavement

Monday, March 7^th marked the launch of Farzana Doctor’s second book, Six Metres of Pavement, which traverses the plains of what happens after you make the biggest mistake of your life. Published by Dundurn and set in Toronto, Six Metres of Pavement tells the story of Ismail Boxwala who forgot his baby daughter in the backseat of his car.

In the twenty years after his daughter’s tragic death and the resultant divorce, Ismail has fallen into a routine of heavy drinking and meaningless sex. The monotony of his unfulfilling life doesn’t change until he befriends two women: Fatima, a young queer activist kicked out of home, and Celia, a recently widowed neighbor living just six Metres away. As a romance develops with Celia, and Fatima increasingly calls on him for support, Ismail finds complicated demands made of him that he is uncertain he can meet.

Hosted by Toronto-based TINARS (This is Not a Reading Series) and held in the Gladstone Hotel’s ballroom, Six Metres of Pavement’s book launch featured musical accompaniment by Sarah Greene, performances by the local storytelling group 10 ½ stories, and a discussion between Farzana Doctor and TINARS’s director, March Glassman.

The cozy ballroom was packed to standing room only for the event, and brought together people from all backgrounds. It was a refreshing sight to see. “The Toronto literary scene is very big and broad,” said Farzana Doctor when Live in Limbo spoke with her afterwards. “Many of the people who came [to the book launch] weren’t people in the literary scene. They were friends, family, neighbors, and activists. I’m part of a lot of different communities and people from those communities all showed up, which was really sweet. Sometimes Toronto’s literary scene is not very diverse. Sometimes you go to a reading and it feels like a homogenous environment. For example, in a full room, only a few people of colour would be present. I’ve really tried to reach out to a wide variety of people because Toronto’s a diverse city and our spaces need to reflect the full diversity that’s really available.” The turnout for Doctor’s book launch was certainly reflected Doctor’s outreach efforts. The room was well representative of the various faces and voices of the city, making for a lively night.