Six Metres of Pavement

I laughed and cried as I read Six Metres of Pavement and followed Ismail and Celia -- endearing, brave, and foolish characters who have to live with the irreparable and irreversible. Farzana Doctor blends cross-cultural empathy with wisdom, and shows us paths to wholeness. Read this delightful, warm guide to remaking and choosing your family. -- Shauna Singh Baldwin, author of What the Body Remembers, The Tiger Claw and We Are Not in Pakistan Ismail Boxwala, an ultimately good man haunted by a horrible mistake, provides the focal point of Doctor's moving second novel in which she examines with crystalline clarity the plight of this gentle, middle-aged Indian immigrant living in Toronto. If you're looking for believable characters, look no further than Farzana Doctor's fiction. She has a gift for reality-based situations and conveys anxiety and passion in a story that turns into a real page-turner. ...the characters are refreshingly genuine. Throughout, Doctor skillfully plays with concepts of motion, migration and movement, both physical and emotional. Novels don't often spring sudden tears from me. This story did it several times, and never with tawdry tugs at the heartstrings. The book cuts deep, to the core of love, universal need and our responsibility to others. Toronto writer Farzana Doctor's second novel is a sensitively written story about the complexities of human relationships, with the added twist of the immigrant experience... A warmly felt portrait of an unusual but successful remaking of a family. It's heartfelt work about characters who come to treat their worst scars with due respect and who learn to abide in chosen families who love them. It speaks with a compassionate voice to a truth that surrounds us. 'The premise for Farzana Doctor's second book is compelling.' - Quill and Quire March 2011 If you're looking for believable characters, look no further than Farzana Doctor's fiction. She has a gift for reality-based situations and conveys anxiety and passion in a story that turns into a real page-turner. - Now magazine March 2011 ...the characters are refreshingly genuine. Throughout, Doctor skillfully plays with concepts of motion, migration and movement, both physical and emotional. - Globe and Mail (Canada) March 2011 Novels don't often spring sudden tears from me. This story did it several times, and never with tawdry tugs at the heartstrings. The book cuts deep, to the core of love, universal need and our responsibility to others. - Xtra! Toronto (Canada, March 2011 Toronto writer Farzana Doctor's second novel is a sensitively written story about the complexities of human relationships, with the added twist of the immigrant experience. A warmly felt portrait of an unusual but successful remaking of a family. - Sudbury Star (Canada), March 2011 As a flawed and immensely likable character, Ismail fascinated me with both his lack of vision and awareness for his own life, as well as his damaged heart and soul, that through the course of the book, shifts. He lives in emotional and psychic pain, never having healed, or forgiven himself. Joining him, with their own complex, painful and fascinating histories, are two very different women who have profound and life-changing effects on Ismail, and on each other. - Fort McMurray Today (Canada), March 2011 It's heartfelt work about characters who come to treat their worst scars with due respect and who learn to abide in chosen families who love them. It speaks with a compassionate voice to a truth that surrounds us. - Carolesbooktalk, book blog, review, April 16, 2011 With a quiet, inward-looking analysis of Ismail's life, Six Metres of Pavement asks how mourning can make way for grief when it's cemented by guilt, and if memories can be defanged. Simmering in the background is a remarkable portrait of immigrant Toronto. - This Magazine, (Canada) July 2011