I am SO BORING!

Hang in there, legions of fans -- update coming soon.

xo

typing is hard

In case anyone's wondering why I haven't been globbing much lately...here's some LP math for your morning's entertainment. Current project allows Your Author five and a half normal weeks of writing time to produce about 71,100 words. By "normal weeks" they mean they're calculating this as if you get weekends off (ha!). This means producing about 2,500 words of sparkling prose a day. Many of those words are phone numbers and things like "open noon-3pm on alternating Tuesdays from June-August but only Sundays and every other Thursday the rest of the year" -- not too taxing creatively, sure, but tedious to arrange. Especially when you're getting the info from a reindeer-mauled notebook or a used cocktail napkin and you have handwriting like mine.

The other part that makes the math a bit weird is that, really, you don't write most of the book from scratch. It's an update of what's already there, so some of the text is going to stay as it is, if it's fine that way. The basic early history of Sweden, for example, hasn't changed much since the previous edition. (Bad example, though, as LP has a "new style" for its history chapters, meaning significant rewrite.) Anyway, what we're really counting here is not so much words written as words prepared. Or something like that.

Anyway. Yesterday I wrapped up a big chapter, which allowed me to do an accurate where-I-stand word count. Uh-oh! The scoop: I've been home and writing for 15 work days, by which I mean Monday through Friday, days when regular people work when they have real jobs in offices. One of those days was a holiday (July 4th!), so let's call it 14 work days. In 14 workdays at 2500 words per day, I should've finished 35,000 guidebook words. That's a lot! So how many do I really have done? Get ready:

25,783.

Ouch!

What this means, of course, is that (1) I'm freaking out a little, and (2) in the margins between today and tomorrow I need to crank out 10,000-odd words. Plus today's 2500! Whoo!

I'm already tired just looking at that!

OK. I'm off to inject some coffee and look around for an easy chapter that's already perfect...

sweden recap

As promised...a brief wrap-up of Sweden, form of list:

• Days in country: 38
  
• Kilometers driven: 7818
• Same distance in miles, according to an online converter: 4846.695299451205
• It sounds cooler in miles!
• Kilometers of trails hiked: probably about 100
• Kilometers of city sidewalks explored: 4846.695299451205 (not counting when I was lost)
  
• Peed in the woods: many times
• Non-adorable cottages seen: two (plus one that was just so-so)
  
• Elk spotted: one
• Reindeer: hundreds
• Australians: only one!
  
• Pairs of shoes annihilated: one and a half (I've been limping)
  
• Hotdogs eaten: one
• Herring for breakfast: five times!

What? Where am I???

The last little bit of my trip was spent in Harnosand with the whole family, as described earlier. Sample photo:

GB and Mini-GB. Dang, that chick is small!

Best quotation of the trip, taken from a report about reindeer, their history and uses:
"The intestines made nice toys for the kids."

When I flew back to Portland, the boys picked me up at the airport in a minivan. It was supposed to be a van full of cute boys, but by accident they had instead filled it with cute girls. Oh well. There was also beer, and just enough room for my luggage, so I was pleased. We cruised around for awhile, attempted to look at the sparkly lights of Portland from Mt Tabor Park, were denied by Johnny Law, retreated to Beulahland, had one beer each and all went to bed. (Not together.)

A couple of days later, John G and Sean came in from SFO for Margo's Awesome Goth Wedding and we immediately went out for drinks. I was still jetlagged and waking up at 3am every day, which meant things started to look weird and woozy by the time the bars closed, but it was fun. (It also made me wonder how much time can pass before you have to concede that what you've been calling jetlag is really just your personality.)

JG and I went to Powell's. I love Powell's. I bought four books. Because if there's one thing I need, it's more books. One of them was Kevin Sampsell's new book, the ickily titled Creamy Bullets, and as I was carrying it around the store, there he was. I saw him see me holding his book, and I didn't know what to do - it was already autographed, and I've only met him once a long time ago, and I just sort of froze. Looked away. Awkward.

The other things I bought were Gary Lutz's Partial List of People to Bleach, which I keep hearing about (mostly from Kevin Sampsell! who published it), and a Paul Berman book (for skool), and this book called Motorman by David Ohle, whose new novel The Pisstown Chaos (which I just started) might be the weirdest thing I've ever read. Planning to review it somewhere so I'll save the details, but if you're impatient and like reading weird things, pick it up.

And that's all for now. More guidebook typing awaits!

pdx

Whoa! Sorry, glob fans, if you were starting to think I'd been trapped in Newark Airport this whole time. I wasn't, I've just been busy. I'm all nestled into my little Portland apartment, now with real art (in frames!) and grown-up furniture. Most of my stuff is in storage, and I have to say it's pretty sweet to have a crashpad so uncluttered.


Still noisy, though. See those windows? Huge loudspeakers in disguise. Broadcasts of the 28th Avenue Street Noise Show begin at 6am and go until about 3am. My favorite segment is the one called "Local Homeless Guys Frighten Drunk Hipsters for Cash," which comes on around 2, but otherwise it's quite peaceful here.

Anyway, I'll be in town until the end of August, typing away at LP's Sweden guidebook and other secret projects.

Speaking of Sweden...update and photos coming later today. Honest!

airport life

Newark Airport is full of tiny birds!

If you ask me it doesn't seem like a super nice place to raise a family. (Even a tiny bird family.) But, then again, when your alternative is to build your nest outside the airport in Newark... OK, I admit I don't know much about Jersey, but Newark I'm pretty sure is no milk-and-honey paradise for the small and winged. (Is it?)

Also, airport people eat messy fried food. Crumbs everywhere!

Plus: man, it is pouring out there. Smart birds.

Anyway, I'm headed home; full trip debriefing to come in a day or two, with jetlag and added pictures!

Attacked!

I'm in Härnösand with the fam, including Mom and Dad, Karl and Natalie, miniature niece, Mormor, Moster, and Captain Joe, the singing sailor. Lots of eating, sleeping and wine. Also chocolate. Today K & N and I took a walk up a hill to get a closer look at this huge windmill, but we failed. Reason: Sniper attack! Sweden is not at war. However, just in case, a zillion Swedish youth were hanging out up there, living in tents and wearing camouflage, hiding in the forest and firing little BB-type projectiles at each other. They had military vehicles and convincing rhetoric, but the guy we talked to said it was just "gaming." (Clearly I'll need to investigate this further.) Anyway, it was a little scary when one of their guards aimed his machine gun at our heads, but eventually his boss came over and yelled at him ("DO NOT AIM YOUR WEAPON AT CIVILIANS," in English), then raised a hunter-orange flag and led us through the war zone, past the camp, and on our way to safety in the village below. No casualties.

Karl took pix, so if he sends 'em I'll post them. (Hi, Karl!) (He's sitting ten feet away.)

Heading back to Stockholm tomorrow, then Portland on Sunday. So long, Norrland!

Abisko

Before that, though, I did some research on some of the walks listed in the old guidebook around Abisko. They were pretty good!


Further evidence will be uploaded shortly.

I peed in Finland.

Pretty much unrelated to Sweden

Two of my stories just came out, on the same day:

A profile of Firewater's Tod A

and

A review of Personal Days by Ed Park (he's funny! go see him read in Portland, Portlanders, and then tell me how it was!)

OK. Back to Arvidsjaur.
(No, I can't pronounce it properly either.)

Picture Time

OK, I've added a few pix to flickr -- you can look at them here. Hooray for rain!

Det Blåser

It seems the weather gods did not receive their copy of my itinerary, which very clearly stated that I would be taking today off to go hiking. It did not include a request for gale-force winds (what's a gale, anyway? just how forceful is that) and sideways rain that turns into snow when you get to the trailhead. None of that stuff was in the memo, but here it all is. Hrmph. A boring afternoon of typing, instead. Lucky me, I'm staying at a B&B (two nights in a row! temporary heaven) that has a nice cozy living room and the free-floating Internet.

This morning I did brave the weather to check out Atoklimpen. It's a crazy-looking mountain, traditionally a Sami holy place. ("Ato" means "that there" - a mountain too sacred to be named!) There's a little cottage and a grass hut at the foot of the hill. The cottage looks humble but secretly wields massive political power. It was built in the 1920s, back when the nomadic Sami were forbidden to build permanent structures. They were only allowed to live in tents. They built it anyway, and the fight over the cottage eventually changed the law. Hut power!

The place is still used for corralling herds of reindeer; I took a little stroll along a pathway past the cottage, which was low enough to escape the wind and rain, and came across a mini-herd. More baby ones, hopping around. You're supposed to let them graze in peace and not go too close, but from far away the babies looked pretty cute.

Oh! Most exciting news of the entire trip so far, and I almost forgot! Yesterday, I saw a moose. Up close! It trotted across the highway right in front of my car, at a leisurely pace (but still too fast for me to pull out my stupid camera in time). I think it was a girl: no antlers. It glanced over at me on its way by, then disappeared into these woods:


P.S. A moose! It was not an elk! Sweden gets confused re moose and elk, partly I guess because "moose" translates as "elj" (because I guess moose are called elk in Britain?). Which makes me confused, too. But dang it, I know what I saw. Moose!

Teleportation!

Cavemen, revealed at last!

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelstories/article/pacificnwkitsch_0608/

Update!

Oh, Swedish beer! How yucky and unbeerlike thou art. Sigh. I bought a can of it at the grocery store (and already the Swedes among you are wailing, "But that's not real beer!" I know, you're supposed to get the good stuff at System Bolaget, but this is regular old Carlsberg 3.5% beer, it should be beer, like I'd have at home, except it has extra flavor of "ew") this afternoon to go with my sandwich for dinner. I'm staying in a pretty little farmhouse in Järvsjö, because I didn't feel like staying in Hudiksvall ("Happy Hudik!" it's called), and because I have a looooong way to drive tomorrow so figured I'd get a head start. I didn't know if this place would be open (turns out it's always open, the guy said, even when he's not around, his neighbors let you in and you leave your money under the pillow in the morning - tooth-fairy honor system) so I stopped for supplies just in case it was going to be a picnic-and-nap-in-the-car night. No worries there. I'm in a big red wooden barnlike house, in a room with one of only two double beds I've ever seen in Sweden (the other is in the room across the hall - usually they're just two teeny beds lined up), with french doors that open onto a little deck that overlooks a wide green river valley dotted with pretty red houses.

Oh, and below the deck there's an immaculate garden surrounded by a tiny red picket fence. Lilacs at the corners. Come on, Sweden. Let up a little.

Yesterday*, in Gävle, which rhymes with a Swedish cussword, for the first time ever I watched the MotoGP while in Europe! (On TV.) It was totally weird. First, I was the ONLY person watching - possibly the only one in all of Sweden; the bar was the only bar in town that seemed to have any televisions at all, which normally would please me. This bar is part of an awful chain called O'Leary's that I tried to eradicate from the previous edition for its pure cheesy obviousness (it would be like reviewing Denny's, except O'Leary'ses are easier to find). But I guess it has its purpose. On the Sunday of the GP race in Mugello, the Gävle O'Leary's opened at 2pm. The race started at 2pm. I waited around the corner until 2:01pm, all casual, then went in, probably looking like I had to pee. The barmaid was sort of mean, but the Hives guitarist in the kitchen understood "motorcycle race" (I don't know the Swedish for race! I know track, but that didn't help), and he knew which channel to put on. I bought a beer and they left me alone. Yeay! But it was odd watching the action without any skreeky boy sound effects around. The silence of the bar made me feel like I had to be quiet, too.

The volume on the TV was up, at least. Hearing the broadcasters in Swedish was funny but sort of disappointing; they never sounded excited about anything. At most, they'd go "oj" (pronounced "oi!" or "oy!" depending) at the really dramatic moments. It took them almost a whole minute to replay Rossi's maneuver into the lead. But there was a better than usual focus on the mid-pack battles. And there was only one commercial break, and all of the commercials in it were motorcycle-related (no Harleys). After the race, you got to see way more of the post-race shenanigans than we normally get. It in fact takes ages for the press conference to come on, because you see everything in real time: riding back to the pits dodging crazed fans, giving and receiving high fives, spraying the champagne, all that. When Rossi and Pedrosa did their mother-tongue speeches, a translater did a voiceover in Swedish. Not as sexy.

* actually a week ago!

OK, now it's Tuesday night. I'm at a hostel in Tänndalen. (I'm not calling them youth hostels anymore. Most people in them are even older than I am. In Swedish they're called "wanderers' homes," which I think sounds nice.) My view through the bedroom window today is almost an exact copy of one of my grandfather's paintings. (A specific one.) Slopy brown hills mottled with leftover snow. In front of that, trees for miles. I think I'm looking at Norway; will check the map later. Since I arrived in Tänndalen, three people have asked me if I was going to Norway, their eyes full of hope and yearning, as if Norway were some mythical beauty forbidden to them. (But they're so close! They could just go!) I'm going eventually, I tell them. (It seemed heartless to admit I'd popped in for five minutes last week.)

Update: Now I'm in Åre. It's a ski-resort town, completely abandoned except for a few dedicated mountain bikers. (This is the kind of mountain biking that requires a dirtbike helmet, knee pads and shinguards; you ride up the ski lift carrying your sturdy little bike, then you ride down at insane speeds on these twisty little tracks full of obstacles like sideways bridges and steeply pitched boulder fields. I've never seen the likes of it before.) Hostel bedroom window has yet another staggering view: trees, mountains, occasional cottages, Icelandic ponies arranged on the green green grass. Today is Sweden's National Day: June 6. It means that on the radio, they play only Swedish music; also, almost everything useful is closed. Same as July 4th in Amurrka, pretty much: listless people sit in their yards on plastic chairs, turning pink, eating and drinking things they never otherwise would, in appalling amounts.

Yesterday was even better. I woke up in Östersund (where the sea monster lives! allegedly) at 7am or so to the sound of inebriated college-aged people dancing in the backs of huge trucks while being driven around the city. It's not something you hear every day, so I had to peek outside and make sure that's what it was. Yep. Traditional Swedish graduation ritual. Loud!

By the time I'd showered and eaten breakfast, dozens of the sad pale creatures were collapsing in little patches of shade from heat exhaustion and too many alcopops. And in bikinis, too!

Anyway. From Åre, I drove to a teensy little hostel in the village of Björkvatten (hard to find on the map - gravel road, etc). This route led me through - yes! - Norway. Instantly, a guy passed me like I was standing still. (He didn't give me the thumbs-up I'm used to getting when this happens. Strange.) The pavement improved, and the house/church dynamic shifted: red church, white houses. Also, SPE, the mountains were definitely cuter.

Photos coming up.

Björkvatten's hostel was abandoned when I got there. A note on the door said (I think), "Welcome! Cyclist to Rm 3. Rooms free! Come back later." The grammar eluded me and I couldn't tell if that meant I should come back later or the warden would be coming back later. (On reflection, it clearly meant the warden, but I was tired.) The door was unlocked, which meant I knew I had a place to sleep regardless, so I relaxed, sat at the picnic table on the lawn and read for a while. The cyclist showed up. No warden. Eventually I just picked out a bed; the cyclist reported that the warden showed up at thirteen minutes past one a.m., but I heard nothing. She was there when I woke up, though, so I got the world's tiniest cup of coffee before hitting the road again.

More Norway! This was the most extreme example yet of its superiority: Sweden, gravel road, major potholes, rickety houses. Cross the border, and voila, buttery pavement shaped as if specifically for motorcycles. (I highlighted it on the map!) I actually drove for about 5km down the wrong road just because it was such a perfect road. (Also because I missed the turn.)

Later I went a km or two out of my way to pass through a place called Kyklingvattnet: "chicken water." Mysterious! Saw it on the map and had to investigate. Turned out to be a pair of scraggly-looking houses. No chickens in sight. Hmm.

Also had my first reindeer sighting of the trip! It was right around the Stenenjokk mine, in a landscape that looks totally fake, like some crazy George Lucas planet. (Again, pics coming soon.) The reindeer were a little too far off to photograph, but it was a huge herd, and there were baby ones. Aww.

This is a very Twilight Zone time to be traveling in Sweden. Tourist season doesn't start until Midsummer ("right now everyone is at home in their gardens," one guy told me). Everything I drive past is closed. But it's so warm and sunny out that it's hard to believe nothing is going on. The weather says "summer" but the calendar says "hibernate." If Sweden were a bear it would be very grouchy right now. Meanwhile, museums are closed, roads are under construction, the hostels have dust bunnies. Gangs of snowmobiles loiter in people's yards, totally bored, nothing to do in this weather.

I'm now in a hostel in Saxnäs. Just ate my first hot meal in recent memory, not counting one grillad korv in Ljusdal. (I haven't seen an open grocery store for miles - Swedish miles! - and I ran out of supplies yesterday. Hungry Becky!) Tomorrow: Tärnaby, where the hostel isn't open yet but a new-ish B&B place is waiting for me. Onward!

språk

"Beach volleyball" in Swedish is "beachvolleyboll."

update, with photos!

Today, since I was so close (Idre & thereabouts), I drove across the border into Norway for a few minutes. Immediately the speed limit went up by ten, and all the o's were crossed out.

Here are some of those pictures I promised you:

^ The morksuggan! It's saying, "Keep Rattvik clean." And implying, "Or else."

^ Cat shaved like a poodle. How did they get it to sit still for this?


^ All of the houses are cute. (This one's cheating; it's historic. But still.)

^ See? Normal house, totally cute. Look at the tiny, tiny hut in the middle. Aww.


^ Even the hotdog stands are cute.

^ Cute bike.

^ One of my lunch stops.


^ A bear!

Best Swenglish Ever

From a youth hostel information email:

"You can also order dirnks and snaks from our blobby bar. "

Mörksuggan

Sunlight! So tiring! Haha. I am in Rättvik, in the Swedish heartland, close to where they make those little painted Swedish horses. Everything's still irritatingly cute. Weather is insane. It's sunny and warm from like 4am until around 11pm, maybe 10:30. Very discouraging. Today I rebelled and spent a Whole Hour sitting on the hostel's front lawn and reading a Novel Unrelated to Work or School in Any Way. It was great. Otherwise, been pretty busy.

Notes of scale:
40 Swedish kronor = about 7 American dollars
cost of tank of gas = 400 kronor
tanks burned through so far = 3 (it was full when I started)
kilometers driven = 1551
kilometers left to drive = untold zillions (I've really barely started)
where I'm sleeping tonight = Rättvik
where I'm sleeping tomorrow night = Sälen
cans of RedBull consumed = only 3!

Readers' poll:
What do people who aren't guidebook writers do when they're on vacation?

Just curious.

Have realized I generally dislike exploring cities and towns of medium size. You have to go through them too quickly to be able to perceive any of their personality, which makes it seem like they have none. I have to take particularly excellent notes in medium-size towns because the second I leave, I forget everything about them. Right now, for example, I can't remember one single thing about Karlstad, except for its cool name. I'm not sure if it was Sunne or Sala whose main square was a parking lot. Wait, no, was it Askelsund...? I mean, these are places I've visited within the past week! But there are so many of them. And after about half a dozen they start to blur and smudge and fade. If I drove back through Sala or Sunne or Askelsund now it might look familiar or, equally imaginable, it might no longer exist at all.

Not to be completely solipsistic.

(I guess that's redundant.)

Anyway, Rättvik left an impression on me; I remembered it from last time. It's tiny, sleepy. Can't remember where I stayed, though - probably a campsite along the way, or maybe this was one of those nights when I slept in my car. But I remembered the long bridge and the ace konditori and the gang of feral kids hanging around the train station.

I hadn't realized until yesterday that it is also the home of one of my favorite critters, the Mörksuggan. Hard to translate. It's something like 'dark sow' but that name isn't cute enough to describe the critter's rotund, fuzzy-tailed, pointy-eared, ghoul-eyed darlingness. It's a little wooden carving thingie, painted black. It rocks gently on its little pointed feet. Margo has one. They look sort of like Moomins. Anyway! Apparently the artist was a local, and the library had a big exhibit about him. He was primarily a painter, and did some things that I believe were etchings, but none of us could come up with the precise word in English, and now I've forgotten the Swedish word (it's upstairs on a note). Forgot his name, too, but I bought a book about him, in Swedish, and the three librarians attending to me were so pleased that a stranger had exhibited interest, they gave me another book ("a gift from the foundation"). They were really excited. I was, too, enough to subject them to my poor, crude Swedish. Which I guess they dug, bless them.

Anyway. Still no wifi, but - pictures of mörksuggarna to come, along with, of course, the shaved cat, some caged bears, and many adorable (but totally unaffecting) pastoral country scenes. Stay alert.

Hej!

Hi there, legions of fans. Apologies for the recent neglect. I'm in Sweden. Uppsala, to be exact. I flew in yesterday, arrived at 8 in the morning, grabbed my rental car (a Skoda, for those of you who pay attention to types of cars; small and grayish-blue, for the rest of us) at the airport, and dived in head-first to my summer job. Uppsala: conquered. Yesterday I walked my ankles off museuming. This country really knows how to do museums. Then today I drove around to all the old iron-forge villages. Very pretty (oh but for a motorcycle on these roads! Course, then I'd never get any work done).

Every time I come to Sweden, especially in spring, I realize I'd forgotten how incredibly pretty the landscape is. Everything is ludicrously green, and practically all the buildings are either cute and red or cute and vanilla or, in the cities, cute and tan. The cuteness is overwhelming. There's also a very particular feel to being here, something to do with the humidity plus the uniformly soft smell of the handsoap...I know that sounds odd, but it's true. (They use the same handsoap in every public restroom in Sweden, plus in my grandmother's house.)

This afternoon I drove through the town of Film. One-word review: picturesque! Seemed wrong to take a photo, though; all I have is a digital.

Also saw a cat shaved like a poodle.

Details and photos coming up.

Northline

Willy V's book just came out! (Dang, Powell's made me think it wasn't out until this weekend.) I have been waiting all week and am annoyed that I didn't just go look and see if they had it at the bookstore, because they probably did. You can't trust the Internet! (For reals about the waiting, though! It is going to be my finally finished-with-the-semester present to myself!) Anyway, I'm going over there right now!

Meanwhile...here's WV's playlist on the New York Times book blog.

Also, check out this sort of funny/creepy thing I found the other day: a blog post in which someone psychoanalyzes my review of WV's novel The Motel Life.

Book review!

Turkish author Asli Erdogan is speaking in NYC over the next couple of days. I wrote a review of her latest novel, The City in Crimson Cloak (Soft Skull), but I got too distracted by homework to do anything with it, so instead I'll start a new trend and make my glob vaguely timely. Here you go!

The City in Crimson Cloak
by Asli Erdogan
Translated by Amy Spangler
$14.95
Soft Skull/Counterpoint

People fend off death in all kinds of ways, usually after they've done their best to court it. Take for example Asli Erdogan's heroine, Ozgur, a stubborn Turkish girl who throws herself into the slums of Rio de Janeiro and refuses to leave, though she knows the city will kill her.

We know it, too. The novel introduces us to Ozgur on the last day of her life, but even if it didn't say so on the cover, you'd be able to guess from the fever-dream intensity of her language that this girl is not long for the world. Erdogan packs her small novel with sensuous, hypnotic and hyperrealistic evocations of Rio -- squalor, heat, paranoia, drugs, noise, corpse-lined streets -- that make Ozgur's dark attachment to the city convincing. She hates the place, but she's transfixed. The fragmented story never clearly explains why she's there to begin with, but one thing you know right away is that she's not the kind of girl to walk away from a fight. And in Rio she finds herself an epic battleground and a gargantuan foe.

Ignoring her mother's long-distance pleas to come home, Ozgur lurks in her spartan room, smoking, fuming and writing. She's out of money, and she's lost touch with her friends. She's an angry girl alone in a dangerous city. Going home would be too easy. Worse, it would be a concession to the rules, an implicit acknowledgement that young girls should behave themselves, that certain places are simply unlivable, that there's no point in struggling against the way things are. Instead, with a thin notebook as her only weapon, Ozgur sets out to tame the city, to remake it according to her own vision. The novel she is writing serves as correction, accusation and lament.

"I wrote," Ozgur explains, "because I could find no other cover, no other protection against death in this city which puts a value on human life of ten to four hundred dollars per head."

The book is short but not slight. Ozgur/Erdogan writes as if she wants to grab the reader by the collar, shake him awake and then slam his face into each metaphor to make sure he gets it. Sometimes she almost loses control of language: "The violence that had grown in her heart like a stalagmite ever since she'd begun to live in this city frequently took over the reins to her being," she writes early on in the book. But the mixed metaphor actually fits here -- in a city as physically and spiritually chaotic as Erdogan's Rio, you can believe that a geological feature might seize the reins and drive a person headlong into disaster.

The stories Ozgur records in her notebook are, she tells us, "just phenomena that I've selected to replace reality, lies to lick my wounds... A few glimmering twitches in an ocean of darkness. Tremulous, plain, enchanted..."

Before long, fiction ripens into prophecy: the things she describes begin happening to her. Ozgur started writing in order to tame the city, but inevitably, the city takes over. Erdogan, a Turkish human-rights activist who has served on the PEN American Center's Writers in Prison Committee, might not have intended her second novel to be an allegory for the creative struggle, but reading it that way is no stretch.