BOOK REVIEWS


these crucial formative years, Santiago meets Ulvi Dogan, a Turkish filmmaker
who will later transform her life in unexpected and pernicious ways.
 It is precisely this relationship that Santiago explores in her most recent
publication, The Turkish Lover. Readers of Almost a Woman were already
exposed to the dynamics of Santiago's relationship with Dogan, a man
seventeen years her senior. What Santiago initially perceives as a means of
escape from an oppressive family environment, particularly from the constant
scrutiny of her mother Ramona, gradually transforms into a different mode
of oppression. Dogan slowly yet systematically renders her speechless,
alienates her even further from her family, and disconnects her from any
sense of cultural identity. Readers left with the ambivalence of Santiago's
decision at the end of Almost a Woman (whether or not to leave with Dogan)
confirm her choice with the first paragraph of The Turkish Lover.

 The night before I left my mother, I wrote her a letter. "Querida Mami," it
 began. Querida, beloved, Mami, I wrote, on the same page as el hombre que
 yo amo, the man I love. I struggled with those words because I wasn't certain
 they were true. Mami understood love, so I used the word and hoped I meant
 it. El hombre que yo amo. Amo, which in Spanish also means master. I didn't
 notice the irony.4

 Santiago's inability to perceive the irony in the term "amo" traps her into
a relationship in which she surrenders her self-control, and lives on the beck
and call of a partner who reinvents her with a diminutive name that will
characterize the rest of their lives together. Chiquita, Dogan calls her; a
veiled term of endearment that translates into little girl, inferior, insignificant,
vulnerable, the slave of both her lover and master.
 The Turkish Lover depicts Santiago's seven-year relationship with Dogan,
an experience that keeps her suspended between geographical spaces (Ft.
Lauderdale, FL; Lubbock, TX; Boston, MA) and a torrent of insecurities and
indecision as she considers staying with Dogan or terminating the
relationship. Dogan's dual personality is evident in the work: intriguing,
mysterious, affectionate protector on the one hand yet dominating,
demanding, uncontrollably jealous, and abusive on the other hand. His
prolonged absences on supposed "business trips" and his inexplicable yet
continuous relationship with Irmchen only serve to deteriorate his image in
Santiago's eyes. The cliched and often repeated phrase that describes Dogan
(el hombre que yo amo) gives way to "el hombre que me ama" as the inner
dynamics of their relationship transform toward the end of the work.
 What emerges in the memoir, despite the circumstances, is a different
depiction of Santiago than the one presented in her earlier works. During
the course of her experience with Dogan, a more defiant Santiago comes to
light, one who explores her social environment and her own sexuality with a
certain degree of abandonment. Inhibitions and restrictions systematically
imposed by gendered discourses in patriarchal societies are left behind by