Yes, I did it again. Sorry for the latest ghost post (if you received it). I still haven’t managed to blow away all of the cobwebs following my over-indulgent birthday celebrations; I’m still wringing my liver out in the sink.
By way of an apology, why not enjoy a bit of Britney before she went a little mad.
Yesterday I published a post about Jo Parfitt’s mouth watering debut novel, Sunshine Soup. I asked Jo if she’d respond to a gentle inquisition about the project. This is what she had to say:
You are a highly successful author of 27 non-fictional books. What made you throw your knickers to the wind and write your first novel? Are you prone to bouts of madness?
Writing non-fiction is easy to me. Like falling off a log. I can write 1000 words in half an hour, easy. So, to me, only writing a novel would count and make me believe I was a ‘real’ writer. Something to do with suffering I guess. If it doesn’t hurt it’s not good enough. Madness indeed. I must have been mad to make myself do this, because my own standards are frighteningly high but also because this is easily the most exposing thing I have ever done – rather as if I had removed my knickers. I am scared of a chilly reception. Aren’t we all?
The world of shopping malls and housemaids is a fabulous backdrop to the book and the life of your main protagonist, Maya, will resonate with many expat women. How much of the book is based on your own experience?
Jo’s Labour of Love
Maya is not me though she loves to cook, has billions of brilliant ideas, a husband who changes into his shorts for dinner parties and two sons, as I do. I went to live in Dubai at 26. Maya goes at about 40. She is maybe the person I might have been had I waited to go abroad until later in life. But there it stops. All my characters are a culmination of many people I have met and some I would like to have met, along the way. Not one is a carbon copy of someone real. It is hard to create a character who is plausible when you base him or her on someone you know, because your own familiarity with the real person can make the carbon copy rather one dimensional. Characters aside, I have lived abroad 24 years now, in 4 countries and, as a journalist, I have specialised in expat issues, culture shock, loss of identity and so on. Sunshine Soup is a bit of a parable and has allowed my characters to demonstrate some of the things I have learned while on my own journey.
Food is an important element of my life with Liam (my new Mrs Beaton). In Maya’s case, cooking seems to keep her sane in the pressure cooker of expat life. Do you think it’s important for expat women to find an occupation?
I think it is important for anyone who does not have the marvellous bill-paying distraction of a ‘real job’ to find some fulfilling to do, whether for money or not. We all need to find out what turns us on and then find a way of incorporating that into our lives, often. For Maya, it’s cooking. For me, it’s the arts (and food).
Without giving away the plot, Maya’s life takes a twist when she re-connects with her ex; her temptation adds real tension. What advice would you have for couples who move abroad (presumably not to join a local swinger’s club)?
I have seen many expat couples go down the divorce road because, once you are abroad and there is a housemaid to cook, clean and babysit, it is easy for both partners to have active, and often separate, social lives. This can be a slippery slope. Temptation is everywhere. Free from the chattels of housework and soap operas affairs can fill the void nicely. My advice is to find joint hobbies and ensure you enjoy them weekly.
Many people say they have a novel in them. Is it that easy?
No. Most of my books take 9 months to create start to finish, like a baby. My novel took four years, three rewrites, cuts of 30%, sleepless nights, crises of confidence, four editors and that heart-sinking feeling of vulnerability when I set it free. But would I do it again? Definitely. It may have been tough, but it was also the most thrilling writing I have ever done. Creating Maya and her world filled me with utter, unadulterated joy. The day that I went to my own kitchen to try out Maya’s recipes (she has 20 in the book) and I found she was rather a dab hand in the kitchen – my character really could cook – was one of the happiest of my life.
What three words would you use to describe Sunshine Soup?
Thank you Jay from Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide for taking the time to create this fun tag cloud to celebrate Perking the Pansies’ first birthday. It includes a not so subtle subliminal message that I support completely!
Jo Parfitt runs Summertime Publishing, the company that is publishing Perking the Pansies. I’m in safe hands. Jo is an accomplished and successful author, mentor, journalist and publisher with 27 books and hundreds of articles under her belt. Jo is nervous, but why? Well, she has just released her debut novel, Sunshine Soup, Nourishing the Global Soul. Anyone who’s poured their heart and soul into a book will empathise with Jo. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Booker prize contender or the writer of a production line penny romance, your labour of love will have you biting your nails until they bleed. I know. Mine are already bruised and bloodied.
Sunshine Soup
Meet Maya, wife, mother of two and owner of a successful deli. Sunshine Soup whisks her away from her friends and a job she adores, to an uncertain life as an expat wife in Dubai. Next, transplant Maya into a fabulous new house, throw in an obsequious maid, send the teenage boys to school and the husband to work, add a potent mix of expat women and stir. What happens next is a colourful and poignant story of a woman who gradually grows into her strange new life but faces some difficult choices and uncomfortable questions along the way. Maya’s friendship with Barb, a colourful, experienced and seemingly confident expat wife, is a fascinating development. Things are not quite what they seem.
It’s impossible not to be drawn in to Sunshine Soup. The characters are strikingly drawn and developed, the plot is compelling and the exotic sights and sounds of Dubai form an evocative backdrop to a hugely enjoyable story of loss, intrigue and redemption.
“Maya picked up her coffee, slid the French doors aside, and stepped out. She would drink it slowly, savouring every mouthful. She rested her arms on the low balcony wall and looked out. Green parrots flitted between the palms and she heard their rough squawks as they dipped and rose. Inspired, her shoulders followed their lead. She raised each in turn coquettishly up towards her ears. Samir, the gardener, hunkered beside a squat palm, slicing away the lower fronds, now dry and pale, to reveal more of the emerging trunk. The blue water in the pool was smooth and glassy as the shadows shrank and the sun lifted towards what would undoubtedly be another beautiful day.”
More than anything, Maya’s story is believable. It is this reality that ultimately makes the novel an important addition to any bookshelf. And yes, there is an actual recipe for Sunshine Soup at the end of the book, along with 19 others – a very nice touch and some delicious recipes.
After an long, exhausting day at the beach we returned home to a bit of a do. Our shared courtyard was ablaze with candles and Bubbly Beril was busily dressing her patio table. Moments later, the flamboyant Sofiya floated through the garden accompanied by a younger woman slapped up like Coco the Clown on a bad hair day. Beril turned to Liam and explained in broken English that she was throwing an impromptu al fresco dinner party and we would be joining them. In five minutes. The menu was a generous selection of calamari and un-filleted fish. This was Liam’s worst nightmare – he simply can’t do fish bones and tentacles are an absolute no no. I watched my husband attempt to keep his gag reflex in check, but he struggled. Eventually, he resorted to stashing cuts of rubbery squid in the pockets of his bermuda shorts. Oh the shame.
The evening was an eclectic mix of insults and complements, with Sofiya acting as the unofficial translator. Her companion was half cut from the start. She sat po-faced and aloof, only opening her mouth to demand more rakı. My attempts to engage her in a friendly tête-à-tête went largely unrequited. When she did speak it was to brag about her English – a result of a ten year stint in Texas (or Teksars, as she called it). Her pidgin dialect seemed little better than my Turkish, but I let it go. The miserable Coco became more and more inebriated. As her tongue loosened, the reason for her truculence became crystal clear – I was the problem. She unleashed an unprovoked broadside in my direction about foreign residents not speaking Turkish. Caught on the back foot, I attempted to placate her with a humble apology and a promise to do better. Dissatisfied, she continued to snipe. After an hour I could take no more and asked Sofiya to intervene – she did so with grace and tact, as I would expect from an ex RADA girl. Sofiya’s friend delivered a theatrical but fake apology topped only by my own fake acceptance of it. She withdrew to the opposite end of the table to sulk and sup.
I do accept that my lack of ear for languages will hinder a meaningful engagement within my host community. However, to be dressed down by an old sop who, after spending 10 years in the USA, could hardly string a few simple words together in English was a bit rich.
When Liam and I came to Turkey, we intended to retire early, put our feet up and watch the pansies grow. With a ridiculous amount of spare time on my hands, I decided to amuse myself by starting a blog. Maybe it would delay my inevitable descent into alcoholism? At the time, I assumed I would end up talking to myself. Twelve months, 400 posts, 2000 comments, 6,000 spams and 120,000 hits later, Pansies has just reached its first birthday. To celebrate this minor miracle I’d like to share what I think are some of the major milestones (Pansysteps).
Perking the Pansies was launched onto an unsuspecting public. God help them. I knew nothing about this blogging business, how it worked or what would happen. This was my debut post.
I knew something was up when the blog exceeded 12,000 hits. Shit, someone was actual reading my inconsequential, irreverent ramblings. I started to understand blog promotion and search-engine optimisation, joined Faceache and that tweet, tweety thingy to build a virtual social network. Well, it beats actually talking to people.
My blog was banned by the Turkish Internet police just as it was taking off. I was expecting a knock at the door by a scandalised conscript in latex gloves, demanding to conduct an internal investigation. I nearly gave the whole thing up in despair.
After a frantic, fretful week, Perking the Pansies shut up shop at Google and moved lock, stock and barrel to begin life anew at brand new WordPress premises. Fear of imminent arrest subsided. This naughty little number was my first post on the revamped, re-launched site.
Perking the Pansies reached 50,000 hits. This was my April Fools’ piece. It was partly inspired by thumbing through the gaypers in a Soho watering hole.
The blog has spawned a little book which is about to go off to the publisher. The book covers some of same terrain as the blog but with much more spice, bite, depth, pace and pathos (Well, I hope so).
This was the first mega post attracting big numbers. Pansies were bursting out all over the place. My pansymap ended up resembling a nuclear attack on Western Europe and North America. All very Cold War.
This is by far my most popular post, 4,600 and still growing. I think it just caught the mood. It also caught the attention of some wanker who left a vile comment. I don’t generally censor comments. Free speech and all that. However, I didn’t publish his nasty little words.
Perking the Pansies reached 100,000 hits and I exposed myself to the world. No, I didn’t get arrested or receive a congratulatory brick through my window.
Many happy returns, Perking the Pansies. Make a wish and hope you make it to the terrible twos.
Hanife, our formidable landlady, swung into rapid action to fix our unholy holey roof; she arranged for the leaks to be sealed by the contractor who originally built the house. He was incensed to find that the electricity company had illegally nailed power cables to our roof and punctured the bloody thing in the process. To add insult to injury, the cables were nothing to do with us; they were supplying an adjacent property. Our fuse box was brought back to life by a pixie-sized spark who dried out the box with a hairdryer plugged into our neighbour’s socket. We watched in horror as he perched precariously on a folding patio chair: one wrong move and his ankles would have been snapped off. Liam made tea while I went for a lie down in a darkened room. This is Turkey.
Once in a while a chance encounter with a stranger can change things forever. My happy happenstance was crashing into Liam one wintry afternoon after work in a pub called ‘Half Way to Heaven’.
Matt Krause, a mighty Yankee vetpat from California has recently released a book. A Tight Wide-open Space tells the touching tale of his own chance meeting that led to love and a journey across an ocean to follow his heart. The story is much more than a boy-meets-girl penny romance, as sweet as that is. It’s also about his struggle to adapt to the strange ways of a strange faraway land. We can all identify with that one.
If you’d like to know more, take a look at Matt’s website. The book is available in paperback or kindle at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
To celebrate the release of the book, I asked Matt to write a guest post about his love, hate, love relationship with that great and ancient metropolis that straddles two continents.
I am not a city boy. In my more militant moments I will rail against urban life, calling cities “cesspools of human filth” and swearing up and down the truest beauty in all the world can only be found when no man is present. In fact, put a glass of scotch in me (I am a lightweight, it only takes one), and I am likely to say things that make the Unabomber look like a humanity-loving urban hipster.
So why did I write a book that starts out as “boy meets girl,” but ends up being “boy loves city”?
Believe me, it wasn’t easy (learning to love a city I mean, although writing a book is no cake walk either).
There are people who go to Istanbul and fall in love with it in 20 seconds. They barely even pull away from the airport before they start raving about how amazing the place is. Immediately they begin posting photos to Facebook and drooling all over everything and generally acting like giddy teenagers who just found the most perfect guy or girl in like, EVER!
I am not one of those people. When I first got to Istanbul I saw little but smog and chaos and stress. Even six years after I arrived I was comparing living there to living like a lab rat in a cage stuffed with so many other lab rats they go insane from the overcrowding, and end up attacking each other and gnawing off their own feet.
But Istanbul has a way of getting under one’s skin, even mine. Few things bring me peace like strolling through the square just north of the Ortakoy mosque on a cool summer night, where young lovers cuddle on the benches and little kids laugh as they chase each other around the plaza. Few things strike me with awe like standing atop the stone walls of the Rumeli Hisari while watching a massive Ukrainian tanker sail south down the Bosphorus on its way to the Mediterranean.
Don’t let my mixed feelings about Istanbul scare you away from it. For every person like me who doesn’t know whether to call that place a shining city on the bay or a shameful scar on the face of the earth, there are ten who say without reservation that it is the greatest city they’ve ever seen in their entire lives. Istanbul is the kind of place that every person, country boy or city slicker, should see at least once before they die.
And certainly don’t let my mixed feelings about Istanbul scare you away from Turkey in general. If I were to list the five most beautiful places in the world, three of them would be in Turkey. The first would be a particular balcony in Gumusluk, a small town on the Bodrum peninsula Jack mentions occasionally on this blog, from which all you can see is sea and all you can hear is wind and waves. The second would be the side of a hill in Kapadokya, 600 kilometers inland, where in the mornings you can step out your front door and marvel at a sky so big and so blue it reminds you it is the sky that brings life to this earth, not the ground you are standing on. And the third, well, that third image is just for me.
Maybe I wrote a book about adjusting to life in Istanbul because I was trying to sort through contradictory feelings that will never reconcile. Maybe I did it because after the thousandth person asked me what it was like in Turkey, and for the thousandth time I didn’t know where to start, I thought maybe writing it down would help me clear my head and move on.
A fat lot of good that seems to have done me though. I miss Istanbul and will be moving back in a few months.
Last night, the heavens opened and we were entertained by a real snap, crackle and pop of a storm. What is it about Turkish raindrops? They seem so much heavier than the Blighty variety as they fall to the ground like cluster bombs. As we watched the spectacle from our balcony, our courtyard became littered with adolescent olives and the road outside was overcome by a river of brown sludge that sloshed against our garden wall. We unplugged our fancy electricals as a precaution against the strobe lightning, positioned towels at vulnerable points around the house and hoped for the best.
At least the town’s first autumnal wash did douse the semi-parched garden. At the beginning of the summer, our neighbour took sole charge of our joint plot and made a valiant effort to keep it well watered. His initial enthusiasm eventually waned to half-hearted resentment; he seemed very pleased with the biblical downpour. We were less enthusiastic. Midway through the tempest, our roof sprang a leak and our fuse box, which is illogically located on an external wall, tripped. Compared to some, we got off lightly. We’re planning a joint birthday shindig this month; our birthdays are two weeks apart. At this rate it will be illuminated by candles and guests will be entertained by transistor radio while they sup warm white wine and dance around strategically placed buckets.
I came across this sweet video of Jamey Rodemeyer, a young American boy struggling with his sexuality. Despite vicious and relentless bullying at school, he had the strength of character to send a message of hope to all young people everywhere who are grappling to understand who they are and to make sense of their feelings. He called his message ‘It Gets Better, I promise’.
Unfortunately it didn’t get better for Jamey. On Sunday 18th of September, he committed suicide. He was just 14. No one will ever really know why he took his own life. The internet is full of conspiracy theories (as usual). What we do know is that he was gay and brutalised by his class mates. Nobody stopped them.
I know how lucky I am. I have a charmed life. I have always had the support of my family and have always felt loved. I am one of the lucky few. I know Blighty isn’t perfect. I know some people harbour dark views. I know some children are bullied. But I’m glad I grew up in a country that is genuinely free, a civilised little island where political correctness has gone mad, according to the more reactionary among us. Well, tough. I’m glad it’s not okay to say paki, nigger, queer or spastic. I’m glad people have to watch what they say and what they do. I’m glad bigotry has consequences. That’s why people died fighting Hitler. Lest we forget.
Yes, I did it again. Sorry for the latest ghost post (if you received it). I still haven’t managed to blow away all of the cobwebs following my over-indulgent birthday celebrations; I’m still wringing my liver out in the sink.
Sunshine Soup
The evening was an eclectic mix of insults and complements, with Sofiya acting as the unofficial translator. Her companion was half cut from the start. She sat po-faced and aloof, only opening her mouth to demand more rakı. My attempts to engage her in a friendly tête-à-tête went largely unrequited. When she did speak it was to brag about her English – a result of a ten year stint in Texas (or Teksars, as she called it). Her pidgin dialect seemed little better than my Turkish, but I let it go. The miserable Coco became more and more inebriated. As her tongue loosened, the reason for her truculence became crystal clear – I was the problem. She unleashed an unprovoked broadside in my direction about foreign residents not speaking Turkish. Caught on the back foot, I attempted to placate her with a humble apology and a promise to do better. Dissatisfied, she continued to snipe. After an hour I could take no more and asked Sofiya to intervene – she did so with grace and tact, as I would expect from an ex RADA girl. Sofiya’s friend delivered a theatrical but fake apology topped only by my own fake acceptance of it. She withdrew to the opposite end of the table to sulk and sup.
When Liam and I came to Turkey, we intended to retire early, put our feet up and watch the pansies grow. With a ridiculous amount of spare time on my hands, I decided to amuse myself by starting a blog. Maybe it would delay my inevitable descent into alcoholism? At the time, I assumed I would end up talking to myself. Twelve months, 400 posts, 2000 comments, 6,000 spams and 120,000 hits later, Pansies has just reached its first birthday. To celebrate this minor miracle I’d like to share what I think are some of the major milestones (Pansysteps).
Perking the Pansies was launched onto an unsuspecting public. God help them. I knew nothing about this blogging business, how it worked or what would happen. This was my debut post.
thing was up when the blog exceeded 12,000 hits. Shit, someone was actual reading my inconsequential, irreverent ramblings. I started to understand blog promotion and search-engine optimisation, joined Faceache and that tweet, tweety thingy to build a virtual social network. Well, it beats actually talking to people.
My blog was banned by the Turkish Internet police just as it was taking off. I was expecting a knock at the door by a scandalised conscript in latex gloves, demanding to conduct an internal investigation. I nearly gave the whole thing up in despair.
After a frantic, fretful week, Perking the Pansies shut up shop at Google and moved lock, stock and barrel to begin life anew at brand new WordPress premises. Fear of imminent arrest subsided. This naughty little number was my first post on the revamped, re-launched site.
g the Pansies was featured in the Turkish national press along with a select group of illustrious fellow jobbing bloggers.
Perking the Pansies reached 50,000 hits. This was my April Fools’ piece. It was partly inspired by thumbing through the gaypers in a Soho watering hole.
The blog has spawned a little book which is about to go off to the publisher. The book covers some of same terrain as the blog but with much more spice, bite, depth, pace and pathos (Well, I hope so).
This was the first mega post attracting big numbers. Pansies were bursting out all over the place. My pansymap ended up resembling a nuclear attack on Western Europe and North America. All very Cold War.
This is by far my most popular post, 4,600 and still growing. I think it just caught the mood. It also caught the attention of some wanker who left a vile comment. I don’t generally censor comments. Free speech and all that. However, I didn’t publish his nasty little words.
Perking the Pansies reached 100,000 hits and I exposed myself to the world. No, I didn’t get arrested or receive a congratulatory brick through my window.
Hanife, our formidable landlady, swung into rapid action to fix our unholy holey roof; she arranged for the leaks to be sealed by the contractor who originally built the house. He was incensed to find that the electricity company had illegally nailed power cables to our roof and punctured the bloody thing in the process. To add insult to injury, the cables were nothing to do with us; they were supplying an adjacent property. Our fuse box was brought back to life by a pixie-sized spark who dried out the box with a hairdryer plugged into our neighbour’s socket. We watched in horror as he perched precariously on a folding patio chair: one wrong move and his ankles would have been snapped off. Liam made tea while I went for a lie down in a darkened room. This is Turkey.
Last night, the heavens opened and we were entertained by a real snap, crackle and pop of a storm. What is it about Turkish raindrops? They seem so much heavier than the Blighty variety as they fall to the ground like cluster bombs. As we watched the spectacle from our balcony, our courtyard became littered with adolescent olives and the road outside was overcome by a river of brown sludge that sloshed against our garden wall. We unplugged our fancy electricals as a precaution against the strobe lightning, positioned towels at vulnerable points around the house and hoped for the best.
Perking the Pansies 