Summary

In Chapter 1, the novel opens in Turkey in 1984. Cem Çelik is a teenager living with his mother and father in Istanbul. Cem narrates the novel in the first-person past tense. His father owns and operates a pharmacy. Cem’s father is politically active and often has “leftist friends” (4) as visitors. One day, Cem’s father disappears without apparent explanation. He has disappeared twice in the past, and at least one of those times, he was taken away by soldiers for political reasons. Cem wonders if his father was taken away for political reasons this time as well. Cem, an aspiring writer, then works at a bookstore in the summer of 1985 to raise money for his further education.

In Chapter 2, in the summer of 1986, Cem is nearly 17 tears old. He meets a welldigger called Master Mahmut, and Mahmut hires Cem as his apprentice. Cem’s...