Summerhouse tells the story of Fehmi and Şener, an elderly gay couple living on the island of Büyükada, near Istanbul. It opens with a celebration: the two of them have been unofficially wed for forty years. "Unofficial" because they need to hide their relationship from everyone except their closest friends, due to public and political perceptions and laws. Their idyllic life is interrupted when a family moves in next-door, following a brutal beating that their son Deniz perpetrated against a classmate in his private academy. Fehmi begins to take a liking to the teenager, though, and the harmless crush turns into something he thinks is mutual. However, when Şener returns one night to hear screaming in the bedroom, he realizes that Deniz was toying with Fehmi in a sick game to try and use the old man as a scapegoat to force his parents into letting him leave the island. Şener can't take this, and his reaction that night haunts the two old men for the rest of their time on Büyükada.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this as much as I expected I would. I think part of the reason is because the book is marketed as "a gay thriller" but I think that does the story a grave disservice and sets an expectation that can't be met by the story. This isn't a thriller. Instead, this is a contemporary fiction with a queer storyline involving two antiheroes who make a terrible decision and have to live with its consequences. In other words, it's a drama.

Now, regarding the content of the book, another major reason I didn't enjoy this was just how creepy the pseudo-relationship with Deniz was. His age is never stated explicitly, but we know he's in his final year of school and he has a birthday after Fehmi has started watching him masturbate and swim naked. This makes the reader assume that Deniz is younger than 18, at least for the first half of the book, ultimately turning the book from what would be a creepy age-gap issue into a creepy and illegal age-gap issue. I also really didn't understand the ending. Berna, Deniz's mother, pieces everything together suddenly while on top of the gazebo where Deniz is entombed, but there's no conclusion beyond her running and saying to herself that she needs to make some calls. Then the next scene is Fehmi and Şener leaving on a cruise liner.... From my perspective, this is a non-ending and therefore leaves the book unresolved. The problem isn't that they escape unscathed, it's that it feels like we're missing pieces from Berna's discovery before their escape.

From a positive perspective, though, I will say that the pacing is good (assuming we change the expectations of the book to be a contemporary fiction, not a thriller). We're introduced as readers to a number of people, their interconnected lives as relates to the two older men, and aspects of Türkiye that are decently portrayed to form a cohesive narrative. The dynamics of Fehmi's and Şener's relationship is also shown to have dynamic ups and downs, rather than being assumed to be stagnant in their 60s-70s, which was an excellent decision because it made them feel more real.

Ladies in Lavender meets Poison Ivy or The Babysitter, but make it gay.

I requested and received an eARC of Summerhouse by Yiğit Karaahmet via NetGalley. Fehmi and Şener have recently celebrated their fortieth anniversary, which is no small accomplishment for a gay couple in Turkey. When a family moves into the home next door for the summer, Fehmi is immediately struck by the beauty of troubled teenage son, Deniz. Despite knowing Deniz would never reciprocate the much older Şener's crush, Fehmi finds himself trouble. As one betrayal leads to another, Deniz formulates a plan that will test the strength of the couple's relationship like never before.

From the overture that opens Summerhouse I was hooked. The suspense, the atmosphere, and the unease successfully seduced me and I couldn’t wait to discover what secrets the novel had to offer. Karaahmet does a masterful job of capturing such a real and nuanced dynamic between Fehmi and Şener. From their first interactions on the page I felt like I had an understanding of their relationship and I really couldn’t wait to see what twists and turns the novel might bring them. There’s a lot of humor to be found in this novel, but what I was most impressed with were the feelings of despair and jealousy that permeate throughout Şener’s scenes as he tortures himself imagining what Fehmi is thinking.

Thematically, there’s this focus on “raging against aging” that feels both real and very camp, making both Fehmi and Şener somewhat sympathetic, but also gloriously entertaining and vicious, like a regular George and Martha. Through his characters Karaahmet offers accurate and wickedly humorous observations about gender roles in gay relationships and the resulting friction. I wish there were more opportunities to share space with Deniz, but I also found him very well-written as the angry teenager and scheming temptress. This was a terrific read, I wanted to rush through it, but found greater satisfaction in lingering and enjoying the mounting tension and paranoia along with a few genuine on the way.

Fun and scary just as much as it is thrilling and suspenseful ! I was on the edge of my seat. Have fun with this one .

This was an unexpectedly good read with equally unexpected twists. While the opening could have been more gripping, I'm glad I stayed with this novel as the story told was not what I've read before. The main characters are forced to confront their relationship and their roles in a way that shows how they develop through the narrative. There are some passages of really beautiful prose and I'm looking forward to seeing how this debut author develops their style and writing in the future.

it's a quick read, and that's good because it helps the thriller move quickly without feeling bogged down.
there's something reflective about looking back on how two men choose to live their lives together in the secrecy of a glass closet. the realistic background to the thriller really helps ground the novel and gets you invested in what happens next.

definitely recommend.

*I received a free copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

I rarely, if ever, read crime and thrillers, but the fact that this is a Turkish crime novel, and a gay one at that, made me change my mind and pick it up (and I think it's also the first Turkish gay novel I've read; if anyone who reads this knows of any more, please recommend them). I'm not sure what makes a good crime novel, but what I like about this one is the setting, which I'm a bit familiar with (Istanbul and its environs), as well as the commentary on the state and the history of the gay issue in Turkey. I must say that I loved the ending. It's devilishly queer, almost Edelmanesque in its refusal (see No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive).

Great little thriller that I originally thought was going to be about two aging queer men in Turkey and the wrench in their lives that a young fit boy next door ends up throwing into their relationship, but it ends up being so much more, in the best kind of way. Would absolutely make a great movie or miniseries. You get to see the anxieties of these men as they get older, and then how they get to come together and creatively problem solve. Definitely pick it up in translation this summer.

Summerhouse is upsetting and vicious, the kind of thriller where you keep watching through your fingers even though you know it's going nowhere good. There was so much about the performance of masculinity, of societal and personal expectations and the difficulties of maintaining secrets through decades. While it never felt kind to any of its characters, Summerhouse retained enough care in its portrayals to keep it from getting bogged down in its direness. It's a welcome addition and a broadening of what we've seen from translated Turkish literature in America!

Compelling if slightly odd, Summerhouse is sun drenched melodrama at its best.

Have you ever eaten candy from another country? A sweet whose ingredients and even flavor are a complete mystery to you because the color is nondescript and the writing on the wrapper appears to be from the Sino-Tibetan Language Family? Yet when you pop it in your mouth you enjoy it enough to keep eating?

Reading Summerhouse was precisely like that experience.

Initially I was expecting some kind of dark, gay, beach read, something atmospheric and nuanced but ultimately not too dense. Then after getting further in I expected something Hitchcockian, layered with buried secrets and ironically futile machinations, shimmering with wit. But about halfway through my expectations changed yet again and I was getting dollops of telenovela and Shakespeare, all tearful confrontations and improbable circumstances with over the top dramatic flair and a deep core of earnestness.

In the end Summerhouse was all of these and none of them.

For the life of me I cannot reckon the repeated Virginia Woolf references (at least 3 by my count) but I was definitely invested and looked forward to seeing where the story would go. The writing felt a little stilted at times but that’s a perennial quirk of translated works and doesn’t carry much weight as a critique.

The basic premise is that Fehmi and Şener, a committed though outwardly closeted couple, live on an idyllic island near Istanbul. The serenity of their house and the orderliness of their golden years are disrupted when a devastatingly handsome new neighbor catches Fehmi’s eye. Over the course of one summer their lives will be upended in ways they could never imagine.

This book was immediately gripping for me. I cared about the fates of these characters and wanted to see what would happen to them. That being said, the plot was a little slow until the arrival of the new neighbors kicked things off. It was necessary for giving the reader context, but still, potential readers should be aware. As I'd already mentioned, the tone was a bit hard to parse. I felt distinctly off balance basically the entire time I was reading. Some bewilderment isn’t necessarily unwelcome in a thriller, however, and after a certain point in the story (you’ll know it when you read it!) my desire for answers became all consuming. The author has a keen sense for imagining the most stressful, dramatic thing possible in any given situation and then taking us there. The ending of this novel was as ambivalent as its tone. It’s the kind of book you foist on your best friend and lock them in a room with until they finish because if you’re anything like me, you’ll NEED someone to talk to about it.

Summerhouse was a bit of an odd duck as books go, but one I enjoyed spending time with. I would give it three and a half stars if such a rating were supported on this platform.