The Girl in the Tree

İşigüzel (The Future Looks Bright) chronicles a teenager’s tragic losses after the violent 2013 Gezi protests in Turkey in this inventive, emotional tale. The narrator, a sharp-witted yet despondent 17-year-old girl, sits in a very tall tree near a hotel in Istanbul’s Gülhane Park, for seemingly inexplicable reasons that gradually emerge (“I’m tempted to say that I’d lost my mind, but if that had been the case, I would’ve at least found some solace in madness”). She reads Calvino’s Baron in the Trees and talks with Yunus, a bellboy at the hotel, who brings her food and water. As the weeks pass, she reflects on numerous sources of heartbreak. After submitting a deeply personal story to a school novel competition, her teacher ridiculed her (“Why does your main character do such senseless things?”). Mainly, she is upset by the fate that has fallen on others, such as the disappearance of her favorite aunt, the death of two best friends in a bombing, and the violence of the Gezi revolt. The girl’s gradual accumulation of stark wisdom is illustrated in both subtle and forthright observations about the inability to escape political realities. İşigüzel’s accessible update of Calvino’s tale delivers a wrenching account of a young woman doing her best to escape the violence of her society. (Apr.)