The Author Party
THE AUTHOR PARTY
“How are you?” Shirin’s dad asks over the phone.
She makes her way unsteadily down the bus stairs, balancing her mobile between her ear and shoulder. “I’m okay, how are things with you?”
He sighs deeply. “It hasn’t been a good week.”
She leaves the number 8 bus at Shoreditch and begins her journey along the busy road, dodging people as she goes. “Really, how come?”
A drunk man staggers toward her and Shirin quickly jumps out of the way and onto the side of the road. She mutters something under her breath before continuing at a brisk pace.
“I’ve been feeling so anxious. I can’t sleep at all—only a few hours a night. Karen is annoyed at me, too. She doesn’t get that it’s my anxiety, that I can’t help it. I wish I could feel better. I wish Allah would just let me be better. I sometimes ask Allah: Why me? Why me?”
She can feel her breath quickening, her mind a fog, as it always is when these subjects are broached by her dad. Before her parents’ divorce, her dad did not believe in anxiety or depression. When Shirin was at university, in her second year, her world was black and white and gray, and she often thought about how she would kill herself, though she did not tell anyone this. When she came home for Easter, she spent most of the break in bed, eyes wide, all day. She often overheard her dad saying to her mum that he did not understand why she acted the way she did, that she had everything and was still, allegedly, unhappy.
“Maybe have less caffeine and see if that helps?” she suggests. “You always feel worse when you drink coffee. Have you been drinking it again?”
“Yes, but it’s not that,” he replies. “My counselor says my mind is too busy, that I need to take care of myself. But Karen’s always complaining about everything I do. And your mother doesn’t even want to talk to me.”
Shirin feels her mind drifting elsewhere. They have had this conversation many, many times before. He rants and tries to get her attention, though she does not know how she can help him. She listens and gives advice, though she is not a therapist, and she is not the person to come to for mental health advice, when she herself is struggling. She is his child and wishes so deeply that she was not always required to parent both her parents.
For the first four years of her life Shirin’s maman and baba bozorg brought her up in Tehran. Her mum and dad moved to Italy when she was two for a brief period, before settling on England. They left Shirin in the care of her grandparents while they traveled around Europe to see more of the world, and to find the perfect place for them to go to university and to ultimately settle down. Objectively, she knew that being raised by her maman and baba bozorg was no bad thing. While her mum and dad quarreled and sometimes more than that—with full-blown arguments that Shirin thought would mean they’d finally leave each other—her grandparents provided her with enough love. She was never left wanting, never unsettled with them. Her parents wanted parenthood to be a part-time endeavor, and their resentment that it was not was palpable. Now, while she might understand their perspective, her relationship with them continues to be both strained and distant. At twenty-six years old, she has no desire to remedy it. Her dad quickly moved on from her mum, leaving with Karen. He was strict with Shirin so she wouldn’t be someone like Karen when she was older, and now he is engaged to her. Karen has two children with two different men, and both of them live with their dads because they do not like her, and she swears that said children are “little bastards.” Karen is thirty-eight and her dad is sixty. Karen is very obviously only after her dad’s money—and he isn’t even wealthy, which makes it all the sadder for them both. Shirin is not sure how they met, though she imagines through online dating. Or perhaps at their local shopping center. Her dad wanders the shops when he has nothing to do, especially since her mother left. She imagines Karen in their family home, watching TV on their sofa, sleeping in the bed her mother slept in, her children in what was Shirin’s bedroom when they visit, and it makes her heart beat quickly, angrily.
“Sorry, I’m on my way to a work thing, so can’t really talk right now. But take care of yourself, okay? Just take it easy?”
There is a short pause before he replies. “Fine, okay, darling. Take care.”
When the call ends she feels guilty. She always feels guilty. If she indulges the conversation, she feels guilty that she did not set her dad straight about his behavior, or that she isn’t on her mum’s side. And if, like now, she doesn’t indulge him with the conversation, she is a bad daughter who is leaving her dad all alone. Even though he has a counselor—and Karen. It is Shirin who is all alone, but because she does not shout like him, no one hears her.
All that remains is irritation. Her heart beats out of time, her fists are clenched. She shakes her hands as she walks, takes a deep breath, and quickens her pace. She cannot remember the last time her dad pressed her for more information about how she was feeling. And she is sure he does not know what she does for work in London. He does not care about her as an individual but sees her as an extension of himself, like a growth that he needs to tend to occasionally with phone calls like this. He does not see that she too has a life, has problems, has feelings.
Though while her dad calls to vent, her mother doesn’t even reply to her emails. Shirin hasn’t heard from her in a week, though she posted an Instagram story of herself with friends in a café in Tehran yesterday, so Shirin knows she is okay.
As she approaches the venue in Old Street, she texts him:
I’m sorry I couldn’t speak more. Do you want to call me tomorrow?
He sends the thumbs-up emoji in response. And just like that her guilt morphs back into irritation.
Every year Hoffman has a summer party to celebrate its authors. This year it’s in a basement bar, and the stairs leading downward are mirrored, as are the walls, with a gold banister and a chandelier. From the outside, the venue appears worn down, but within it is beautiful and decadent.
Down the stairs Shirin is shown to the cloakroom by a staff member in a sharp suit, and soon afterward she is given a tall glass of prosecco with a raspberry in it. She did not ask for one but takes a sip anyway, figuring that one glass will not hurt. In fact, following the call with her dad and the sinking, guilty feeling within her, she thinks it’s needed.
Mariam catches her as she enters the main room and touches her arm lightly. “There you are,” she says. “I was looking for you.”
“Well, this is quite intense, isn’t it?”
Mariam’s mouth is open to continue speaking when a group of authors approaches them. One of the authors Shirin recently started working with is among them, Leila Campbell. Leila lived in Egypt for most of her life, and her memoir has won Hoffman awards, though it has sold few copies.
Leila tells Shirin and Mariam that she is so glad there are people of color rising up through the ranks in publishing, and tells them to continue even if it’s hard—that they are the future. They both thank her, say she is so kind, and that yes, the lack of representation is really not good enough, is it? Though all the while Shirin feels a heavier sinking within her; the conditions in which people of color are placed in this industry are so stark compared to their white counterparts. There is the sense that it will be hard for them and they just have to be strong enough to deal with it. That they must, otherwise nothing will change from within. Normally Shirin shakes the heaviness off, but it sticks tonight, holding her down.
Later in the night the mood is merry. Shirin is also vaguely merry from the prosecco, though she is avoiding another one of her authors, who goes by the pseudonym Georgina Barlow-Wallows. She is really called Sally Smith. Sally has written a series of books about impressive women in the Regency and Victorian eras. She is a large woman with short, highlighted hair cut just underneath her ears. Her laugh radiates around the room, and she reminds Shirin of the dinner ladies at her school—which is not an unkind comparison, because those women were lovely to Shirin. But the comparison ends with her outward appearance.
Earlier in the evening, in a group of five—Shirin, Sally, and three other authors—Sally detailed her trip to Cuba over the summer. She was describing the long flight, and in her description of how awful and cramped the flight was, she mentioned a Black woman who was sitting next to her, and how her hair was “invading her space.” “So I told her to put her hair away,” she said. “It was everywhere. I mean, I’m not being funny, but it shouldn’t go over to my side of the chair.” Sally’s cheeks were pink and she was smiling, and Shirin felt so outside herself, so reminded that this is a space she most certainly does not belong in.
“What did she say?” one author asked, also with a slight smile.
“Well, to be honest, she kicked off, used the race card—it’s not a race thing, obviously, it’s a space thing. Anyway, I complained to the flight attendant and we got upgraded to first class, so… result!” She grinned and the others laughed and said how lucky she was, how things like that never happened to them. They asked her what first class was like and she said it was “fabulous,” and Shirin stood there, looking off past their shoulders, a second glass of warm prosecco in hand. She hated herself in that moment for being silent. But it was not the time, the place, the person to say something to. In any other circumstance she thinks she would have, but here she was rendered silent. It was so at odds with her body’s reaction, which wanted to fight rather than freeze.
When she left Hull at eighteen, she thought she was leaving all of this behind her. But now she is wondering whether the publishing industry is any different from being at school. There is often this impression that the South of England is much more civilized than the North, but here she is at an industry party, putting up with racists. There isn’t all that much difference—and it is a depressing realization.
Time slips further away. She is enveloped in various conversations, her glass topped up without prompt, and her face hurts from fake smiling. She is pretending to laugh constantly, so much so that she no longer thinks she can call what she is doing laughing but rather making a strange sound at everything the people around her are saying. When she realizes this, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, where she sits in a cubicle, her face stony and tired. She sits on the toilet and goes on her phone.
She has an Instagram follow request from @KianRahimi. It has been three days since the barbecue and while she has of course Instagram-searched him since, she has resisted following him first. She goes to the request, her finger hovering, lingering over the accept button, before she taps it.
@KianRahimi: Hey, it was really nice to see you at the BBQ.
@ShirinInTheCity: It was nice to see you too.
She clicks on his stories, finally, because she has wanted to do that for a while. He only has one post and it’s of a book by an author Hoffman publishes—A. K. Hosseini—and he wrote how much he enjoyed it.
@ShirinInTheCity: We publish his books, you know—I could get you a proof of his new one if you want.
She is not even entirely sure she can easily do it but types it anyway. He replies almost immediately.
@KianRahimi: Seriously?? That would be awesome.
@ShirinInTheCity: No problem!
@KianRahimi: Maybe I could buy you a coffee to say thanks?
She types different responses and is supremely conscious that she is sitting on the toilet, so eventually she simply likes his message and says: Sure! x
She receives a text:
Hana: I’m on a date with a guy who just said he’s not read a book before. From, like, start to finish. I even asked him what about school, and he said he always pretended. He’s hot tho, so…
Shirin: But does that mean he wouldn’t read a book YOU wrote?
Hana: God, you’re right, but look…
She sends Shirin his Bumble profile picture, and Shirin immediately replies with:
Shirin: Ok, fine, I won’t judge your decision either way.
Eventually she exits the cubicle and takes her time washing her hands, relishing the quiet, the warm water, and expensive soap lathering her hands. She smooths down her dress, which is black and tight on her waist, flowing down to her calves. The straps sit in a Bardot style, and she wears a blue crystal Swarovski necklace Hana gave her for her twenty-first birthday. She observes her blond hair, which she has clipped back with crystal hair grips away from her face. She wonders for the first time whether her dyed hair is her way of assimilating, whether it even suits her. And then she thinks of Kian, who said he liked her hair, and in addition to the confusing stirring of many conflicting emotions, right now rising to the top is something unfamiliar. It catches in her throat, and she feels suddenly light, as though the unpleasantness right now is irrelevant because soon she will see Kian again.
At 10 P.M. Mariam yawns into her cranberry juice. Shirin has both elbows on the standing tables, her body away from the dance floor that has formed. Mariam gets her phone out and scrolls through it, before pausing, putting her glass down, and tapping Shirin’s hand. “Oh my God,” she says. “That small man is at it again.”
Shirin stands a little straighter and says, “What small man?” Mariam is five foot ten; in her eyes, most men are small men.
“That shite comedian Rob Grayson.”
Dread in the pit of her stomach appears so swiftly that Shirin is theatrically breathless when she asks, “What now?”
Mariam hands Shirin her phone, and Shirin scrolls through a tirade of tweets attacking various people. He is far-right in his views, and says that England has turned to dirt because of all the foreigners who have entered and stayed. It is not what he is saying, necessarily, that is most surprising, but the overwhelming agreement with his words under each post. He says Shamima Begum, the girl from East London who left England for Syria after being groomed, should not be allowed back into the UK, that she should rot in Syria. People reply with crude memes, and it is not new, but it is still shocking to see the way people who look like Shirin and Mariam are so othered, as though they are not human beings. It is not just white people in agreement with him, but some Black and brown Twitter users proclaiming that “enough is enough,” as though he is not attacking them, too. Rob’s comments are in response to calls for his book deal with a major publisher to be revoked—he says he will not back down. A quick scroll through and Shirin discovers he recently performed a racist comedy sketch about migrants, which began all of this. As she scrolls, new tweets come in thick and fast. He retweets supporters saying that freedom of speech is a human right, not seeing the irony of such a statement given the context. He retweets supporters from America who say they need to stick together. Though against whom?
It shouldn’t all be surprising—but it is. Shirin wants to think Rob hasn’t changed since school, but that wouldn’t be true. He is more overt in his racist views now, whereas back then he was more secretive about it. Now he has hundreds of thousands of people agreeing with his poison, and that only makes a person bolder.
She returns Mariam’s phone to her, speechless for a moment. “Fucking hell.” It’s all too much. They entered publishing because they enjoyed reading. They assumed their industry would be a gentler world, that they would not have to confront racists regularly, that they would help publish books that make a difference. But more and more she is noticing there is only talk about doing better and less action—which prompts the question: why is Rob being published in the first place?
“At least we’re not publishing him,” Mariam says, as though she can hear Shirin’s mind. Mariam mock shudders—and she does not even know half of what Shirin knows about him.