Mushfik is a young man growing up in Turkey, first in Sarikum, a small coastal village, and later in urban Istanbul. He comes of age in an atmosphere of sublimated, disoriented eroticism, his impulses restrained by religious and sexual taboos, rigid gender roles, stifling maternal love, and the enforced silences of social decorum. Unable to adapt easily to society''s unspoken rules, he is driven to the point of insanity from which he must slowly and painfully return.
Told from several points of view and structured in a series of intersecting flashbacks and interior monologues, Death in Troy describes the difficult geography of male intimacy from multiple perspectivesadolescent friendship, homosexual desire, mother-son bonds, and the relationships between men and women. In a complex chorus of styles and voices, Karasu evokes states of exaltation, humiliation, passion, and despair to create a jarring disharmony of one boy''s growth into manhood.
[Karasu
Trade Review
"...an authentic look at ...sexual consciousness in a culture where sexual norms are strictly regulated by religion and custom."—Echo Magazine, January 10, 2003
"...several scraps of beauty [are] scattered among this linked series of stream-of-consciousness texts."—Out Magazine, August 2002
"Disjointed and elliptical, this novel is a flawed gem about homosexual love, as well as other kinds of passion..."—WBUR, Boston, September 24th, 2002
