Walking on the Ceiling: A Novel
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

Savas' quiet and emotionally rich novel is a tender portrait of a young woman exploring her identity and coming to terms with her personal history. Nunu has moved from Istanbul to Paris after her mother's death. There she meets M., a writer whose novels are set in Turkey, and they form a sweet, quirky friendship. Consistently trying to impress M. and recreate herself as a possible character in one of his novels, Nunu spins tales of her home which are often embellished if not downright fabricated. These stories begin to steep Nunu in her past, forcing her to revisit her difficult relationships with her parents and look at the current turbulence of her homeland. In short, vignette-like chapters, Savas jumps between places and times, treating readers to Nunu's astute inner monologues as she grapples with her invented and true selves. Like Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton (2017), this novel is deceptively simple and subtly profound and will appeal to those fond of character studies and lovely writing.--Kathy Sexton Copyright 2019 Booklist

The dislocations of place, identity, time, and truth eddy through Savas's elegant debut. Back in her native city of Istanbul after her mother's death, Nurunisa lives amid its constant changes while reflecting on a short but transformative period when she lived in Paris. Seeking to avoid a conventional future and a painful family past, she enrolls in a literature program there. At a bookstore reading, Nunu meets M, an older man whose English-language novels about Turkey she admires. In their emails and long walks, Nunu finds the sense of connection she has longed for. Though their bond is deep, Nunu is not entirely candid with M about the ambiguous figures who have shaped her life, at first eliding some of her most complex experiences with her father, a former writer who descended into mental illness, and her mother, Nejla, with whom she has a fraught relationship; only gradually do these stories emerge. Interweaving past and present, Paris and Istanbul, evasion and epiphany in spare yet evocative prose, Savas's moving coming-of-age novel offers a rich exploration of intimacy, loneliness, and the endless fluidity of historical, cultural, and personal narrative. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

DEBUT This exquisite first novel is written in the voice of a young Turkish woman by Istanbul-born, Paris-based Savas. It has the feel of memoir, but with a post-modern, meta quality in its meditation on the possibilities of narrative. The protagonist is an aspiring writer who studies in London, returns to Istanbul to care for her ailing, neurotic mother, befriends a famed British writer while living in Paris, then finally returns to Istanbul to live. The strands of her life are revealed in the way memories present themselves: not chronologically but in isolated, wistfully rendered scenes. She frets that the stories she tells college roommates, the famous author, even her mother, are dishonest, their truth slipping into fiction. The beautifully written result examines the futility of capturing a story, of how we inevitably deceive when we tell the story of ourselves. Countering this idea is the need to document the beauty of the places the -author has seen-a Paris bistro's striped light, old neighborhoods lost as Istanbul modernizes-and she worries that all trace of those places will disappear unless they are recorded. VERDICT A poetic yet intellectual novel; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 1015/18.]-Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In Paris, a young Turkish migr assuages her loneliness by striking up a friendship with a novelist."So much of the texture of a relationship disappears when shaped into stories," the narrator of Savas' debut novel opines. Nurunisa, or Nunu, is speaking about her relationship with M., a British writer living in Paris who is best known for his novels about Istanbul, Nunu's hometown. Nunu meets M. at a bookstore reading shortly after she moves to Franceostensibly to go to graduate school, though she has no intention of even beginning the program. Mostly, Nunu is trying to get away from her past: a brilliant, melancholic father who died when she was young, a disconnected mother, an overly analytical ex-boyfriend, and, most of all, Istanbul, a city whose loss looms largest. Completely alone in Paris, Nunu befriends M. on the basis of their shared mythologizing of Turkey. Together, they eat, drink, and mostly walk, traversing the streets of Paris with the ghost of Istanbul as their constant companion. Savas does not plot her novel so much as weave it, with very short chapters taking up threads of Nunu's childhoodher fussy aunts, her summers spent in the countryand her present ruminations from a time in which M. is no longer in her life, her mother is dying, and Istanbul's political turmoil "presses down on us, heavier each day." Nunu calls this reminiscence of M. an "inventory," and that's exactly what Savas has produced here, rendering with elegant intelligence the minute details of both places and people. That the novel moves in circles, acknowledging that some places can be glimpsed but never really explored, makes it all the more like a long walk through a city one can never quite call one's own.A refined and wistful exploration of the nature of memory. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Savas' quiet and emotionally rich novel is a tender portrait of a young woman exploring her identity and coming to terms with her personal history. Nunu has moved from Istanbul to Paris after her mother's death. There she meets M., a writer whose novels are set in Turkey, and they form a sweet, quirky friendship. Consistently trying to impress M. and recreate herself as a possible character in one of his novels, Nunu spins tales of her home which are often embellished if not downright fabricated. These stories begin to steep Nunu in her past, forcing her to revisit her difficult relationships with her parents and look at the current turbulence of her homeland. In short, vignette-like chapters, Savas jumps between places and times, treating readers to Nunu's astute inner monologues as she grapples with her invented and true selves. Like Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton (2017), this novel is deceptively simple and subtly profound and will appeal to those fond of character studies and lovely writing. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.

DEBUT This exquisite first novel is written in the voice of a young Turkish woman by Istanbul-born, Paris-based Savas. It has the feel of memoir, but with a postmodern, meta quality in its meditation on the possibilities of narrative. The protagonist is an aspiring writer who studies in London, returns to Istanbul to care for her ailing, neurotic mother, befriends a famed British writer while living in Paris, then finally returns to Istanbul to live. The strands of her life are revealed in the way memories present themselves: not chronologically but in isolated, wistfully rendered scenes. She frets that the stories she tells college roommates, the famous author, even her mother, are dishonest, their truth slipping into fiction. The beautifully written result examines the futility of capturing a story, of how we inevitably deceive when we tell the story of ourselves. Countering this idea is the need to document the beauty of the places the author has seen—a Paris bistro's striped light, old neighborhoods lost as Istanbul modernizes—and she worries that all trace of those places will disappear unless they are recorded. VERDICT A poetic yet intellectual novel; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 1015/18.]—Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

The dislocations of place, identity, time, and truth eddy through Savas's elegant debut. Back in her native city of Istanbul after her mother's death, Nurunisa lives amid its constant changes while reflecting on a short but transformative period when she lived in Paris. Seeking to avoid a conventional future and a painful family past, she enrolls in a literature program there. At a bookstore reading, Nunu meets M, an older man whose English-language novels about Turkey she admires. In their emails and long walks, Nunu finds the sense of connection she has longed for. Though their bond is deep, Nunu is not entirely candid with M about the ambiguous figures who have shaped her life, at first eliding some of her most complex experiences with her father, a former writer who descended into mental illness, and her mother, Nejla, with whom she has a fraught relationship; only gradually do these stories emerge. Interweaving past and present, Paris and Istanbul, evasion and epiphany in spare yet evocative prose, Savas's moving coming-of-age novel offers a rich exploration of intimacy, loneliness, and the endless fluidity of historical, cultural, and personal narrative. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)

The dislocations of place, identity, time, and truth eddy through Savas's elegant debut. Back in her native city of Istanbul after her mother's death, Nurunisa lives amid its constant changes while reflecting on a short but transformative period when she lived in Paris. Seeking to avoid a conventional future and a painful family past, she enrolls in a literature program there. At a bookstore reading, Nunu meets M, an older man whose English-language novels about Turkey she admires. In their emails and long walks, Nunu finds the sense of connection she has longed for. Though their bond is deep, Nunu is not entirely candid with M about the ambiguous figures who have shaped her life, at first eliding some of her most complex experiences with her father, a former writer who descended into mental illness, and her mother, Nejla, with whom she has a fraught relationship; only gradually do these stories emerge. Interweaving past and present, Paris and Istanbul, evasion and epiphany in spare yet evocative prose, Savas's moving coming-of-age novel offers a rich exploration of intimacy, loneliness, and the endless fluidity of historical, cultural, and personal narrative. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)