Booklist - September 15, 2004 - Starred Review
Shafak, Elif. The Saint of Incipient Insanities
Oct. 2004. 368p. Farrar, (0-374-25357-9).


Three roommates, Omer, Abed, and Piyu, are all foreigners, studying and living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Omer, a handsome party boy studying political science, has recently arrived from Istanbul, and he lands a room in the house of Abed, from Morocco, and Piyu, a dental student from Spain. Omer falls in love with the neurotic vegan lesbian Gail, and they eventually marry. Abed is a consummate worrier who must contend with his mother s visit from Morocco. Piyu is awestruck by his girlfriend Alegre s cooking, but not necessarily by her close-knit family full of watchful aunts, and unaware of the secret she herself harbors. Together, these three friends experience love, exile, and a lack of cultural identity, as they forge ahead with their lives in a new land, with relationships with new people, confronting their greatest joys alongside their worst nightmares. Elif Shafak is a prizewinning author who, until now, has only written in her native Turkish.
This is her first novel in English, and she presents a masterful command of language, which she uses cleverly, humorously, and engagingly.

 Michael Spinella