“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
~ Jorge Luis Borges ~
Spotlight
Homeless
by, Zeynep Guvenc Amazon: http://amzn.to/1TsTJvk Goodreads: http://bit.ly/22mN7io Recognizing Him means having a home; denying Him means being homeless.” Home represents shelter, a roof, peace and happiness. Our true home is located in our heart, the house of God. My novel Homeless (61,085 words) is a work of multicultural adult fiction set in San Francisco. Each chapter represents a “scene” in a human’s life. The book flows along two parallel streams that are intertwined with each other: the first is the real world, the second is the inner world. The inner world includes philosophical metaphors taking place on the islands of San Francisco: Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and Angel Island. They represent the places the human soul visits internally based on a person’s daily experiences. Following an abusive childhood, Johnson is homeless, living on the streets of San Francisco. His life intersects with a Turkish immigrant family, living in “Turk Street” and facing inter-cultural and inter-religious challenges in a new country: Nuray is deeply unhappy, knowing that she no longer holds her unfaithful husband’s heart. Her three children are each facing their own problems. Pressurized into doing well academically, Meltem becomes addicted to performance enhancing drugs. Little Emir is diagnosed with ADHD, while Cihan faces confusing questions over his sexuality. Cihan’s childhood friend, Edom, has grown up in a wealthy but loveless Jewish family. On reaching young adulthood, he falls in love with Cihan. However, Cihan is essentially straight. His affections lie with family friend, Lara. For her social project, Lara stays overnight on the streets of San Francisco to understand how it really feels to be homeless. She meets Johnson that night, and after Lara invites him to give a talk on homelessness to her classmates at San Francisco State University their relationship blossoms into love. Lara and Johnson get married. Cihan is devastated and ends his relationship with Edom. Consumed by jealousy and a desire to win Cihan back, Edom deliberately runs Lara over and kills her. Cihan finds solace, but not love, with Lara’s Pakistani roommate, and eventually they marry. According to the belief, every human being is going to watch their life in the hereafter, like a movie. All the characters in my novel have actually already died, and are watching as we read about their lives unfolding. |
Excerpt
Treasure Island: The Season of the Heart
The universe would be the color of a person’s heart. When one sees the universe with their heart, it would be black, white or rainbow colored.
Cihan could see his actions reflected in the outer world. Sometimes they were good, and sometimes they were bad; sometimes they caused joy, other times sorrow. However he couldn’t see his actions in his soul’s mirror. When he complained about the storms inside him, it was he who was unaware of them. Was there really a storm?
The steel rope between his feelings and thoughts became a thin cotton one. His head and heart couldn’t connect and swim in the swallow water. A strong wind made his heart a mess. He had to wear lots of things to warm it, but they were not enough. He had a hole inside and the cold was coming through it. He wouldn’t be able to get warm as long as his heart was cold.
Cihan was worried. He cared and was interested in his heart, and as a result it became heavy. How could he perish under his own organ? How could the source of his life crush his head? He would have no escape other than to have a heart attack maybe. Would his heart riot against his body in this way?
Cihan was terrified of breaking hearts, but this caused him to break his own heart a hundred times. His body made excuses to do things its own way. His soul disobeyed its owner and lied about its own history.
There were some hearts that couldn’t reach themselves and hear their own voices. When the emptiness echoed, they thought they had their answers. When they thought they were in the depths of pleasure, they were pushed back to their gardens.
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