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Summary
Summary
They found him inside one of seventeen cauldrons in the courtyard, steeping in an indigo dye two shades darker than the summer sky. His arms and chin were propped over the copper edge, but the rest of Kemal Türkoglu, age ninety-three, had turned a pretty pale blue.
When Orhan's brilliant and eccentric grandfather, who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs, is found dead in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But his grandfather's will raises more questions than it answers. Kemal has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in a retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan's grandfather would have left their home to this woman rather than to his own family.
Intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There, over many meetings, he will unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards--the story that, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which Orhan's family is built, the story that could unravel Orhan's own future.
Moving between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan's Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that haunt a family.
"A remarkable debut from an important new voice . . . Beautiful and terrible and, finally, indelible." --Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Queen of America
"To take the tumultuous history of Turks and Armenians in the early part of the past century, to tell the stories of families and lovers from the small everyday moments of life to the terrible journeys of death, to make a novel so engrossing and keep us awake--that is an accomplishment, and Aline Ohanesian's first novel is such a wonderful accomplishment." --Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon
"From its first startling image, Orhan's Inheritance will seep under your skin and leave an indelible mark upon your heart. What lucky readers we are to inherit Aline Ohanesian's gorgeous work." --Gayle Brandeis, author of Delta Girls
"Readers who were moved by the work of Carol Edgarian, Mark Mustian, and Nancy Kricorian will appreciate the historical authenticity and passion that Aline Ohanesian brings to this story of the Armenian Genocide. Orhan's Inheritance is heartfelt and sincere." --Chris Bohjalian, author of The Sandcastle Girls
"A harrowing tale of unimaginable sacrifice . . . A novel that delves into the darkest corners of human history and emerges with a tenuous sense of hope." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Author Notes
Aline Ohanesian's great-grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Her history was the kernel for the story that Ohanesian tells in her first novel, Orhan's Inheritance. Ohanesian was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction and Glimmer Train 's Short Story Award for New Writers. Born in Northridge, California, she lives and writes in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband and two young sons. Her website is www.alineohanesian.com.
Reviews (4)
Kirkus Review
In Ohanesian's debut novel, a Turkish man confronts secrets about his family and his country's history and is faced with an impossible choice: Should the past remain in the past, or should all stories, even the most painful, come to light? When his grandfather dies, Orhan returns from Istanbul to the small village where he grew up and the contentious relationship he shares with his father; the tension is exacerbated when his grandfather's will reveals that he has left the family dye business to Orhan and the family house to a strange woman in an Armenian-American nursing home. While the rest of the nursing home prepares for an exhibit called "Bearing Witness: An Exhibit About Memory and Identity," Seda at first refuses to talk to Orhan about her connection to his grandfather. When she finally unburdens herself, giving voice to a harrowing tale of unimaginable sacrifice, he must decide what to do with this new information about his family and about the horrors of his country's history. In a complex balance, Ohanesian often condemns language as insufficient to convey these stories of loss and pain, while at the same time recognizing that telling the story can be cathartic and even universally necessary. The heart of the novel seems to suggest that "[t]here is only what is, what happened. The words come much later, corrupting everything with meaning." There are deep reflections on guilt, both collective and individual, and the power of memory to destroy or to heal. By rejecting the power of the written word but also, in writing a novel, relying on it to be powerful, Ohanesian explores both sides of this argument about bearing witness to Turkey's terrible legacy. A novel that delves into the darkest corners of human history and emerges with a tenuous sense of hope. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Stretching back and forth through time over the course of the twentieth century, Ohanesian's heartrending debut chronicles the painful odyssey of one family against the broader backdrop of the Armenian genocide. When his grandfather, a successful Turkish businessman, dies, Orhan travels back to his native village, where he learns that his grandfather has unexpectedly willed his textile business to him, rather than to his father. Even more distressing than this humiliating break with tradition is the fact that the family's ancestral home has been left to an unknown woman residing in an Armenian American nursing home in Los Angeles. Commissioned to travel to the U.S. to meet this woman and get her to sign over the house to his father, Orhan is compelled to unravel the mystery of his grandfather's past and his family's role in a shameful period of his country's history. Ohanesian does a remarkable job of conveying the weight and the influence of time and place without excusing or excluding the human dimension that necessarily factors into the unfolding cataclysm.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
STOKELY: A Life, by Peniel E. Joseph. (BasicCivitas, $18.99.) After the deaths of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, who embodied the black power movement, was considered an heir apparent in the battle for civil rights. His life is a crucial, if sometimes overlooked, part of the "route black America took to its present understanding of itself and its complex relationship to this country," our reviewer, William Jelani Cobb, wrote. THE HARDER THEY COME, by T. Coraghessan Boyle. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $15.99.) Boyle's novel explores the noxious combination of anger, paranoia and power through the stories of three characters: Sten, a Vietnam War veteran hailed as a hero after killing a robber in Central America; Adam, Sten's mentally ill son with a propensity for violence; and Sara, Adam's lover, who is also a member of an anarchist group. After Adam shoots two people and flees, a manhunt ensues, and leads Sten to reconsider how best to relate to his son. ORDINARY LIGHT: A Memoir, by Tracy K. Smith. (Vintage, $16.) Smith, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, reflects on the forces that shaped her, including her childhood years in Northern California, an early visit to relatives in Alabama, and her literary influences. At the heart of the memoir is Smith's fierce bond with her mother, and her reflections on her identity as a black American and a woman. THE VILLAGE, by Nikita Lalwani. (Random House, $16.) In Lalwani's second novel, a young BBC documentary filmmaker and her bickering crew travel to a small Indian village, Ashwer, in pursuit of her next topic. The town is an experimental "prison village," where violent criminals are permitted to live with their families and are allowed to seek daywork outside the village confines. THE DELUGE: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931, by Adam Tooze. (Penguin, $20.) This account depicts the time in history before American power became, as Gary J. Bass wrote here, "the defining political fact of the modern world." Tooze's history begins mid-war, and traces how the United States outstripped its European counterparts, leveraging its growing economic power into military might. ORHAN'S INHERITANCE, by Aline Ohanesian. (Algonquin, $15.95.) After Kemal, the protagonist's grandfather, dies in 1990, his family is puzzled by a mysterious woman named in his will: Kemal left her the family's home in Turkey. When Orhan, his grandson, delves into Kemal's past, he soon discovers a story of ill-fated love during the Armenian genocide. SPEAK NOW. Marriage Equality on Trial: The Story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, by Kenji Yoshino. (Broadway, $17.) Yoshino chronicles the landmark 2010 trial that struck down the ban on same-sex marriage in California, and considers its far-ranging legal, and personal, ramifications. As he writes: "I speak in this book not only as an expert in constitutional law but also as a human being who has lived it."
Library Journal Review
Ohanesian's debut follows two families-one Turkish, one Armenian-from the end of the Ottoman Empire to the 1990s in this harrowing story of death, life, love, sacrifice, resilience, and hope. Learning that his grandfather left their ancestral home to an Armenian stranger in a California retirement home, Orhan searches for answers to questions raised by his grandfather's will, only to discover that the woman beneficiary had no legal relationship to him or his father-possibly voiding the will under existing Turkish law. Orhan's research also introduces him to the Turks' and Armenians' turbulent history and the Armenian genocide. Assaf Cohen's professional, emotive reading draws in listeners. VERDICT This will appeal to fiction listeners with an international and historical bent. ["Ohanesian's beautifully written debut brings to life a historic tragedy that Turkey still denies ever happened.... Moving and unforgettable": LJ 4/15/15 starred review of the Algonquin hc.]-Laurie Selwyn, formerly with Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.