A young man growing up in a small coastal village comes of age in an atmosphere of sublimated, disoriented male eroticism. Governed by religious and sexual taboos, rigid gender roles, stifling maternal love, and the enforced silences of social decorum, he is driven to the point of insanity from which he must slowly and painfully return. Told from several points of view and structured in a series of intersecting flashbacks and interior monologues, the novel describes the difficult geography of male intimacy from multiple perspectives-adolescent friendship, homosexual desire, mother-son bonds, and those between men and women.

Bilge Karasu (1930–1995) was one of Turkey's most inventive and beloved writers. His novel Night (Louisiana University Press) was published in English in 1994.