Gardens of Water
Alan Drew,
Bloomsbury, 12.99 pounds

A devastating tremor and its seismic effect. Alan Drew’s debut novel, Gardens of Water, is centred on two families, two different cultures, and the earthquake of 1999 that rocked western Turkey. Sinan Basioglu and wife Niloufer have just celebrated their son’s coming-of-age circumcision ceremony when their world is torn apart. Nine-year-old Ismail is seen floating out the window “as if on a pillow of air”, and cannot be found for three days. When he is located under rubble, it transpires that he was kept alive by their Christian missionary neighbour — Sarah Roberts — who gave her life to save him.

A Kurdish refugee, Sinan despises the Americans and loathes the fact that he is now in their debt. His hatred grows when he is compelled to move to a Christian American camp run by his surviving neighbour, Marcus. He suspects that the grieving widower is trying to convert Ismail in an attempt to redeem his wife’s death
The other reason he feels helpless is that the relocation allows his 15-year-old daughter, Irem, an opportunity to fall in love with Dylan, the forbidden foreign boy who lived in the flat above theirs. With both fathers caught up in despondency — one in grief over the death of his wife and the other over the lack of dignity of being in exile — the children are free to break all taboos and forge a relationship. Rock music and the lyrics of Radiohead further allow them to block out a world.

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