The Turkish Lover: A Memoir by Esmeralda Santiago 1,180 ratings, 4.08 average rating, 106 reviews The Turkish Lover Quotes Showing 1-2 of 2 “Another train will come. Enthralled admirers of Esmeralda Santiago's memoirs of her childhood have yearned to read more. Now, in The Turkish Lover, Esmeralda finally breaks out of the monumental struggle with her powerful mother, only to elope into the spell of an exotic love affair.At the heart of the story is Esmeralda's relationship with 'the Turk,' a passion that gradually becomes a prison out of which she must.

The Turkish Lover

THE TURKISH LOVER

Esmeralda Santiago
Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press, 2004.
ISBN # 0-7382-0820-5
341 pages.

Comments by Bob Corbett
March 2006

The author bills the book as a memoir, but I chose to read it as a novel. I made the choice for two reasons:

1. The recent flap about James Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, which he revealed on the Ophra show was not all true. He confessed to making up some of his “memoir.” I then followed the national discussion of this genre.
2. But mainly it was her use of exact dialogues throughout, in a book that covers seven years in time and was published (if not written) nearly 20 years after the time period of the book itself.

Regardless of the genre I enjoyed the book a great deal and believe the writer to be a superior story teller with significant insights about humans reflected in her two main characters.

Esmeralda has come to the U.S. with her mother when she is eight. They fled Puerto Rica looking for a better life. Esmeralda grows up half way between U.S. culture and language and Puerto Rican Spanish language culture.

At age 21 she meets Ulvi Degan, an undocumented Turk living in New York. He is 17 years her senior but they fall in love. To him, she is his “Chiquita,” an innocent, gorgeous young woman whom he can teach and shape. She is attracted to his European manners, his connections in the artistic, political and wealthy circles and his deep attraction for her.

They begin the seven year affair, terminating in a stormy breakup, but one that allows the reader a final sigh of relief: -- She did it! It’s about time…

Why did it take so long for “Chiquita” to become Esmeralda and her own person? It’s really not easy to understand or bear, year author Santiago makes a convincing case – enough of one that even the skeptical reader can’t help but suspect there is indeed much autobiography in what I’ve chosen to read as a novel.

Esmeralda Santiago is an excellent builder of character. She is comfortable in presenting Americans in their culture, Ulvi’s Turkish ness is persuasive, and her mastery of Puerto Rican culture impeccable, and even her insights into the world and culture of East Indian dancing is creditable.

A worthwhile read of an interesting author.

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The Turkish Lover Summary

The Turkish Lover Summary

'I will teach you everything,' says Santiago's lover, the Turkish filmmaker Ulvi Dogan. 'But you must listen to what I say.' Thus begins the deftly understated saga of an intense, abusive relationship in Santiago's third memoir. When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) and Almost a Woman (1998) examined Santiago's Puerto Rican childhood, her adolescence in New York and her emerging acting career, when Dogan spots her in a phone booth and offers her an audition. Santiago revisits their seven-year relationship with uncommon candor and directness. Dogan controls Santiago's every moment, yet Santiago believes he 'was gentle and understanding' of why she couldn't always obey him. In their nomadic lives (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; New York; Syracuse, N.Y.; Lubbock, Tex.), they make up and break up as Santiago devotes herself to Dogan's graduate studies and career. But when a traffic jam unexpectedly delivers them to Harvard Square, Santiago blurts out, 'I belong here.' So it happens that at 25, she enters Harvard. It's the beginning of the end with a man who 'might love me, as he claimed, but he had no idea, no clue whatsoever, of what was important to me.' Although there's nothing here to delight readers seeking a vicarious dip into another culture (which When I Was Puerto Rican provided), Santiago's latest will grow on readers. Her slow self-realization is deeply human. Agent, Molly Friedrich. (Sept. 1)

Forecast: Santiago is an enormously popular author with a proven track record, and reading groups are sure to gravitate to this. She'll go on an eight-city author tour, stopping at the Miami Book Fair; and will be profiled in Latina and on NPR.

The Turkish Lover Esmeralda Santiago