"Are You Enjoying?" by Mira Sethi

Mira Sethi, a writer who lives in Lahore and in San Francisco, has published a compelling collection of short stories set in Pakistan: “Are You Enjoying?” (Knopf, 2021). The stories inform non-Pakistani readers about Pakistan, but never in a didactic way; at the same time the book draws us in with the many both realistic and surprising situations the characters find themselves in. Most of the stories are about young people and their relationships, including ways in which they are influenced by and sometimes restricted by the norms of their country and families. Sometimes the characters find ingenious ways around these norms. In case any readers might think the stories and the writing would be conservative because of their setting, they will soon be proven wrong. There is plenty in the stories about sex and sexualities, and plenty of frank and colloquial language about these matters and others. The stories deal with family and family connections and obligations. Sometimes sexualities and love affairs have to be hidden, even disguised by such strategems as marriages between gay men and lesbian women. Sometimes there is violence. The stories are brimming with vividly-described experiences, conversations, twists and turns in plots, and all the mixed events and feelings of life; they never allow the reader’s attention to drift.