MEN DON'T CRY
a novel by Ercan Akbay
approx. 254 pages / 81.902 words. The manuscript is available in Turkish and in English. Translation to the English is done by Maya Akbay. Edited by Donny Smith.
Genre:
literary fiction, thriller, black fiction, mystery, suspense.
Summary:
Men Don’t Cry is an intriguing, fast-paced novel which narrates strange, interlocking adventures of intense love and lust. Two like-minded fourteen year-olds, enthralled with the Bohemian lifestyle, ignore their gang, and escape from boarding school. They are unaware that the price of making their innocent dreams of freedom come true is high, and that they are about to start a fire that will have a profound effect upon the whole of their lives.
The book takes us on a never-ending journey from the sordid, crime-ridden world of petty theft to art fraud, from surprising electronic discoveries to smuggled historical artifacts, from lust-fuelled loves to the deadly mysteries of insanity. Although last chapters of the final episode reveal some more mysteries of the earlier episodes; like the ominous motivation behind the behaviors of the second male character of the novel, and the reasons of our hero’s lover’s carelessness, the illness and all the rest of the questions at the audience’s mind are enlightened, but still, there lie in the shadows new questions that are bound to remain unanswered. The author, once more, succeeds in leaving a bitter aftertaste when confused lives cross at the novel’s striking end.
The Structure of the Book:
'Men Don’t Cry’ consists of four time-based episodes; 1974, 1982, 1987 and 1988, and a total of forty chapters. At the beginning of each episode, a brief summary of the past years are described, including the general atmosphere of the city together with the music and social trends. Each chapter is named to its subject contained, averagely six--seven pages long, and forming a book of 260 pages. The theme of this fourteen-year-of-a-period mystery is basically built upon passion and envy.
Synopsis:
1974
The story of ‘Men Don’t Cry’ starts in 1974 at a boarding school in Istanbul. The narrator, a fourteen year old student, together with his best friend Ayhan are to be the brains of the gang they set up at their dormitory. The first chapters introduce the audience into a vivid journey among the members of the gang, and helps to visualize the atmosphere of the time and place; the occupations of the main characters and their way of living. Actually, right from the first page, the urge of adventure and its reasons are clearly defined.
The first hint of the ‘possibility of trouble’ comes out at the beginning of the Chapter 6. The Boy, trying to find solutions to pass over the barriers, keeps on searching eagerly for a very creative and original way. His idea of escape irritates Ayhan at first, but the Boy’s persistence convinces him eventually.
At last, the Boy finalizes his plan, sharing a fate with his best buddy; they step together into this joyful journey on a foggy early-Spring night. After an easy-going trip, the runaways reach at their final destination, dining and chatting until a strange looking man comes to their table, and starts pestering them in a very annoying way. They just can’t foresee the events that will unfold that night into a horrifying end. The episode ends with a bizarre twist; unspeakable abuse, that will be a mystery till the end of the book.
1982
After giving a break of breath by narrating the period’s conditions and City’s atmosphere to the audience, the second episode inserts the third main character of the novel. The Boy, who is a twenty-three years old young man now, a broke university student that has no hope for the future, meets his first serious relationship of his life; Nuket, a brilliant and beautiful girl of the high society, who belong to a strange group of people which he called the crowd. The boy is accepted by the group because he is a real ‘tramp’ and he thinks that’s why Nuket actually loves him.
After enjoying some time under the glamorous lights of Istanbul’s dreamy nights, the Boy falls into a kind of depression caused by the memories of the night that impressed him badly several years ago, and the anxiety he starts to feel because he believes there is no future for him in the spoiled shitty high-society life that he is leading. So, at the final of the episode he dangerously causes an incidence that injured an innocent young girl, losing all the respect of the crowd, he miserably alienates them and Nuket.
1987
The third episode takes us to the main development of the novel. Thirteen years later from that night of 1974, and five years from 1982, being a young businessman, the Boy sees the photograph of his never-seen-since-then best friend Ayhan and unforgettable-true-love Nuket together in a newspaper; and reads the news they are preparing to get married. Grieved with jealousy, and with so many complex feelings, the Boy decides to find a way and enter into the couple’s private life.
The Boy has established a small electronic Company throughout these years, together with his engineer partner Hasan, the business was a success for the first four years and provide money for both of them, but recently took a downturn where it is tough to keep on for that time being.
Firstly, he sets up an electronic system that he can listen and record the phone conversations of Ayhan’s house. Ayhan is a rich businessman now, dealing with art business. Solving some of the secrets of his business life’s success, he also attempts to meet with him again while visiting Ayhan’s art gallery. At last, they ‘accidentally’ meet each other there; and start a new friendship. The friendship develops into a close two-man-and-a-woman complexity beginning at the couples’ wedding ceremony and the following honeymoon trip which they go all together to Ayhan’s summer-house at the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, trying to solve the mysteries of Ayhan would take the Boy into another heartbreaking and parching adventure.
Together with an orange plantation, Ayhan bought a small island where he has built a summer house on, and this isle is on top of a vanished Lycia city. Ayhan reveals that he is in business with an American Company to sell some historical artifacts that he’s found at the excavations under the sea. Ayhan offers him to go into business together albeit a dirty one, as the Boy cannot bring himself to reject it, since he had huge financial problems with his own Company, and also in need of earning Nuket’s love again that he hopes to heal his long suffering due to that horrible night thirteen years ago. He accepts Ayhan’s offer of two million dollars to lead the negotiations with the authoritative of that American Company.
At the end of the episode, the Boy comes out with a solid victory from that bargain but couldn’t find any solution to neither of his problems. Instead, he falls into a deeper depression that he’s at the borderline now to loose all he’s got.
1988
The fourth and the final episode, starts with the hopeless convulsions of the Boy, waiting for the money transfer and keeping on to find a solution to his situation desperately. He visits Ayhan, and after the shocking argument that ends with a severe injury of Ayhan by a single knock from him, following his exit from the art gallery, he is arrested by the police incriminated to be interfered into the artifact smuggling case of Ayhan and Nuket Zorlu couple.
Staying horrible three weeks in the prison, and when he is dismissed, he goes directly Nuket, and there he learns there that Ayhan’s died at the hospital a few minutes ago. On the last dinner they eat together, the events of that night of fourteen years ago are revealed, and he learns that Nuket is sentenced to jail for several years.
Although these last chapters of the final episode also reveal some more mysteries of the earlier episodes; like the ominous motivation behind Ayhan’s actions and the reasons of Nuket’s carelessness and all the rest of the questions at the audience’s mind are enlightened, but still, there lie in the shadows new questions that are bound to remain unanswered.