Spanning decades and landscapes, from forests along the Black Sea to villages along the Euphrates, from the streets of Istanbul to the mountains bordering Iraq, the stories in this collection probe the lives of ordinary people who confront extraordinary moments of personal reckoning.
A powerful and provocative debut collection with a vivid sense of place ... The longest story ... is dragged down by talking birds who pithily argue ethics with their would-be keeper ... This is Orhan at his best: finding comedy lurking on the outskirts of tragedy, reveling in the inherent absurdism of the all-too-real.
Orhan’s incisive and often improbable stories are more than parables, though there’s plenty of allusion and allegory tucked into the prose ... Deliberately paced, provocative stories that play on the many faces of fear and trembling.
