Mark T. Mustian

A woman with ‘mismatched eyes, one dark, the other light’ and a man following these eyes for almost one hundred years. Meantime history follows its path changing the life of these two people. In all these events memory plays one of its best game: memories. dreams, yesterday, today are playing in a turbulent back and forth.
Emmett Conn is a ninety-two-year-old man, ex-gendarme, when he was young he escorted Armenians from Turkey before the World War I. During this perilous journey he met Araxie.

The book starts with a question: ‘Ninety-two years have passed - for what? For what?’ (p.5) And after this question follow several dreams of an old man, or are these dreams only memories?
Emmett and Araxie met the first time as in a dream, without contact: ‘What is your name? She does not respond, or if she does, her name is lost in the leaves.’ (p.12)
As Atom Egoyan has written in the advance praise for The Gendarme: ‘Ahmet Khan’s spiritual transition to Emmett Cann is emotionally resonant’; I’d say also Emmett transition to Ahmet. At the end of the book Ahmet and Emmett become one person, the ends of all stories become just one end.

After Ahmet becomes Emmett in America and the old man what happened? Why Emmett choose Carol instead of rescuing Araxie? Could be the following some of the answers?
‘Race and division and circumstance - these surmountable, all! ... I should speak, I should offer support for rebirth, transformation, but instead I am frozen, my tongue stilled and thick. What is my direction? My offer? ... I could blame the heavens, blame fate or luck or inheritance, but it is all to no gain. My shame is boundless, my guilt so heavy it overweight even truth!’ (p. 198)
‘I am from Turkey. I fought in the war. I was injured, then rescued. An immigrant. A father ... I was a gendarme, a ... murderer. That this is my shame.’ (p. 208)
Could shame affect a whole life? Maybe not, there is an answer at the end: ‘Things weave in and out. I am there, I am here. At the end the past is so great it intrudes like an army!’ (p. 274)
The past could be dangerous, but it’s great.

Until the last chapters I had many doubts about The Gendarme: Is this book too ‘cold’? I mean, written as a lecture about elderly people and old history.
Although the passages from one story (old Emmett) to another one (young Ahmet) seems a relieve of the pain of remembering or dreaming; I preferred the narration of the old Emmett: point of view of an old man like a camera that watches, records, and put down.
Mustian telling the deportation’s story on Turkey border is lacking of ‘spicy’: the deportation is narrated as a summary from history books, so I’d have preferred smell of horses, carpets full of sand, sounds of small bells from running horses, shouting, etc.… (altro)

I won this advanced copy through the Goodreads Giveaway Program-Thank you Goodreads!

Mark Mustian’s debut novel is a powerful story about a former Turkish gendarme and his role in the Armenian genocide that took place in Turkey during WWI. While his prose are lean the images he evokes are vivid, searing, heart-wrenching and unforgettable.

Emmett Conn was wounded in Gallipoli during WWI and lost most of his memory prior to that time. He goes on to marry an American woman and immigrates to the U.S., where he becomes assimilated in American life and culture. It isn’t until he is diagnosed with a brain tumor when he is 92 that he begins dreaming of his life before the war. His vivid dreams tell the story of himself as a young Turkish gendarme, Ahmet Khan, in charge of leading 2,000 Armenians out of Turkey and into Syria. The journey is horrendous, filled with killing, disease, starvation, rape and torture. Of the 2,000 Armenians that begin the journey only about 65 reach their final destination (his was only one of many caravans that made this same death march). During this long trek he falls in love with an exotic looking young Armenian woman, Araxie, whom he protects and cares for, but ultimately can not hold on to.

While many of the reviews call this a love story pointing to an enduring love that crosses lines of race, religion, adversity, war, and even time, I can only see a thread of a love story somewhere among the ruins. Ultimately my take away from this book is man’s inhumanity to man. Is there another animal on the planet that commits genocide on its own species because a particular part of that species is a different color or religion (yes, I know it is absurd to think of animals as being religious)?

I read a lot of books that deal with war, misery, and the human condition, but I have to say this is one of the more depressing ones I’ve read; one horrible thing happens after another, even in the present day storyline. Having said that though, I think this is an important book, one that gave me greater insight into a part of history I knew little about. Mustian can be sure that after reading this no one will forget there was an Armenian Genocide, and perhaps by remembering we will not be destined to repeat it.
… (altro)

The Armenian Deportations of 1915 as presented by "the other side", a young Turkish man, who is a gendarme, or paramilitary policeman, guarding a convoy of Armenians headed to Aleppo, Syria. The story flashes from the past to the present--back and forth: After this stint, Ahmet Khan, the protagonist, now in the Turkish army, is wounded, mistaken by the British for one of theirs, taken to a hospital and meets and marries Carol, an American nurse, taking an Anglicized version of his old name, Emmett Conn. She brings him to the States where he has a fulfilling career as plumber then builder. After a prolonged illness and his caring for her, Carol dies. Emmett has a brain tumor and only remembers his past life in flashes. He remembers meeting an Armenian girl, not much younger than he and falls in love, although he does his share of cruel things on the brutal trek. Now 92 years of age, he searches for his past as a young man in Turkey; he doesn't remember much before the British hospital. How much is true; how much are dreams or visions through seizures? He searches for Araxie, whom the dreams have brought to life again for him.

This beautifully-written novel was depressing but a page-turner. The ending seemed a little too pat. And I disliked his daughters. Some of the present-day incidents seemed a bit implausible, especially his drive to New York. I did wonder about a 17-year old as leader of a group of gendarmes; I thought that was very young for a position of responsibility.

Highly recommended. I felt it showed the endurance of love amidst obstacles.… (altro)

I decided to read this book due to the subject matter. As a someone who grew up in Turkey and was taught only "official history" in school and as someone who wants to read and learn about "the other," I think it's hard to find books that are not propaganda one way or another. I think Mustian does a good job in imagining what a Turkish gendarme (jandarma, in Turkish) would feel, then and now. The "lost memory" element was not extremely necessary, in my opinion, and may have made some people feel like it was too contrived. As the Armenians are known for passing down the stories of the horrible things that were done to them during the genocide, the Turks have spent almost a century denying and forgetting them.
In terms of language and writing style and even story, I found the modern day story of the ailing 92-year-old now-American immigrant Emmett Conn far more interesting and well-written than Ahmet's miserable life in 1915. Emmett's relationship to his daughter and grandson, his memories of his recently deceased, ailing wife, his struggles as an immigrant, his life in a institution, his relationship with the other patients... All of this was written very well, with stark images that were crisp and gripping. Emmett's memories of his shameful past were...more sentimental? Perhaps it is this shift in sentimentality that made me wish for more Emmett and less Ahmet? Perhaps also it is hard to write about a love story in the middle of such a horrendous situation without seeming a bit sentimental.
… (altro)