Seven Houses: A Novel - Softcover

Croutier, Alev Lytle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743444140 ISBN 13: 9780743444149

Publisher: Washington Square Press, 2003

Synopsis

From internationally acclaimed author Alev Lytle Croutier, Seven Houses chronicles the lives of four generations of remarkable women, sweeping readers from the last days of the Ottoman monarchy to Turkey's transformation into a republic and the present-day backlash. It is the saga of a silkmaking family as told through the houses they occupied. From a grand villa in Smyrna in the early twentieth century to a silk plantation in the foothills of Mount Olympus, from a tiny house in a sleepy town to an apartment in a modern urban high-rise, the family's dwellings reflect its fortune's rise and fall. As communal baths and odalisques give way to movies and cell phones, four unique yet powerfully linked women experience all of life's hardships and pleasures.

About this title

Review:

San Francisco Chronicle A highly imaginative family saga...Croutier's measuered prose is artistic and sensuous.

Isabel Allende Seven Houses is an exotic and beautiful story. Alev Croutier has a rare talent for braiding history and fiction in an intricate pattern. In her writing Turkey emerges like the land of Scheherazade.

Seattle Times A superb novel!

Washington Post A lush, rich read, a satisfying weave of storytelling.

Synopsis:

Alev Lytle Croutier's SEVEN HOUSES is a lush and powerful family novel that follows four generations of Turkish women at pivotal turning points and crossroads in their lives. Their story begins in a villa in Smyrna in 1910. Esma, a tradition-defying widow with two young sons, embarks on a tragic love affair that brings another precious gift; her daughter Aida, whose astonishing beauty is both a blessing and a curse. Her sheltered daughter Amber comes of age during the music revolution of the fifties. Amber daughter Nellie is born in America and it is through her journey back to Smyrna to find her roots that the lives of all four women come full circle. Against the backdrop of history played out across an exotic global stage, from World War I through modern times, from a silk plantation in the foothills of Mount Olympus to a high-rise apartment in a U.S. city, SEVEN HOUSES tells an unforgettable tale of love, family and the struggle to find one's place in a world of limitless horizons and dizzying change.

About this edition

• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743444140
• ISBN 13: 9780743444149
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320