The Bastard of Istanbul

Two families—one Turkish, one Armenian-American—are bound by a secret reaching back to the 1915 Armenian genocide. In Istanbul, nineteen-year-old Asya Kazancı, the "bastard" of the title, lives in a boisterous all-female household of aunts, devoted to Johnny Cash and the French existentialists. In Arizona, Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian—daughter of an Armenian father and stepdaughter of Asya's estranged uncle—flies secretly to Istanbul in search of her heritage, and becomes fast friends with Asya. As the two young women dig into the past, they uncover a truth that ties their families to atrocities their countries remember very differently. A sweeping, controversial novel of memory, identity, and inheritance.