The Turkish Lover

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The author of When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman returns with a third volume of her triumphal, lyrical memoirs. Insightful, yet thoroughly unpretentious.

Kathryn Harrison

The Turkish Lover doesn't cast the vivid narrative spell of Santiago's earlier descriptions of growing up in Puerto Rico, but there is considerable suspense in watching and waiting for her eventual escape. If Santiago is not a consistently elegant writer, she is one who has forged a remarkable life and career that readers cannot help but follow.
— The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

A deftly understated saga of an intense, abusive relationship...Santiago's latest will grow on readers. Her slow self-realization is deeply human.

Publishers Weekly

"I will teach you everything," says Santiago's lover, the Turkish filmmaker Ulvi Dogan. "But you must listen to what I say." Thus begins the deftly understated saga of an intense, abusive relationship in Santiago's third memoir. When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) and Almost a Woman (1998) examined Santiago's Puerto Rican childhood, her adolescence in New York and her emerging acting career, when Dogan spots her in a phone booth and offers her an audition. Santiago revisits their seven-year relationship with uncommon candor and directness. Dogan controls Santiago's every moment, yet Santiago believes he "was gentle and understanding" of why she couldn't always obey him. In their nomadic lives (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; New York; Syracuse, N.Y.; Lubbock, Tex.), they make up and break up as Santiago devotes herself to Dogan's graduate studies and career. But when a traffic jam unexpectedly delivers them to Harvard Square, Santiago blurts out, "I belong here." So it happens that at 25, she enters Harvard. It's the beginning of the end with a man who "might love me, as he claimed, but he had no idea, no clue whatsoever, of what was important to me." Although there's nothing here to delight readers seeking a vicarious dip into another culture (which When I Was Puerto Rican provided), Santiago's latest will grow on readers. Her slow self-realization is deeply human. Agent, Molly Friedrich. (Sept. 1) Forecast: Santiago is an enormously popular author with a proven track record, and reading groups are sure to gravitate to this. She'll go on an eight-city author tour, stopping at the Miami Book Fair; and will be profiled in Latina and on NPR. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In her third memoir (after When I Was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman), Santiago exposes with crisp clarity her struggle to extricate herself from a lover who did not know how to love and substituted instead obsession and control. The book recounts how she left her mother's control only to encounter Ulvi, a Turk 17 years her senior determined to rule her life, e.g., he selects her clothes and discourages her efforts to return to school. He even ignores her real name, substituting the diminutive Chiquita. Santiago writes with understated grace. Instead of whining, she gives a humorous account of a celebratory dinner for Ulvi after he achieves his graduate degree possible only because of her research and editing. At a friend's insistence, Ulvi begrudgingly acknowledges his "typist and spell-checker." "To Chiquita," everyone exclaims in the last toast. We get it and fortunately, she does, too, beginning her seven-year odyssey toward autonomy, which includes a Harvard education. Recommended mainly for public libraries, but college students will also welcome Santiago's account. Nedra Crowe-Evers, Sacramento P.L. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Santiago's memoirs, which began in When I Was Puerto Rican (Perseus, 1993) and Almost a Woman (Knopf, 1999), continue. At 21, she left her family and her home in Brooklyn to be with Ulvi. She was not sure she loved him, but she was convinced that this was the step she had to take "into the rest of her life." A Turkish immigrant, he was much older, worldly, domineering, and condescending. Their relationship was lopsided. He didn't allow her to answer the phone, pick out her own clothes, or drive. While Ulvi earned two masters degrees and a Ph.D., she helped him with his research and typed his papers. But all was not lost. By the time Esmeralda had the strength to separate from him, she had earned a degree from Harvard University and was supporting herself. In addition to exploring themes of feminism and racism, Santiago shares her personal view of life. When life becomes frustrating, she falls back on the theory that "there [will] always be another train." This memoir is realistic and humorous, and its themes and lessons are just waiting to be discovered.-Sheila Janega, Fairfax County Public Library, Great Falls, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.