Blood Tie

by Mary Lee Settle

In a novel that begins with accidental death and ends with deliberate murder, Mary Lee Settle tells the story of an eclectic collection of American and European expatriates who take refuge in an ancient Turkish city and, once there, wreak havoc on the Aegean paradise. At first the characters appear to have little in common, but as the novel progresses their motives and desires cross and blend in a geometry of misunderstanding.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

386 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1979

About the author

Graduate of Sweet Briar College. Winner of the National Book Award in 1978 for Blood Tie.

Reviews

[Daisy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled through this turgid tome that really was a lot of nothing. Its very hard to define what it was. A novel? But that would suggest there was some kind of plot. A collection of vignettes? That would suggest brevity which at nearly 500 pages does not apply. A snapshot of a particular time and place? But that would mean the action remained rooted in one locality which it doesn’t. Maybe it is the lack of focus that makes the book so disappointing. There are so many characters and so many themes it feels like Settle couldn’t bring herself to leave any idea out and so everything is thrown in and nothing is developed satisfyingly.

Set in an unspoilt Turkish coastal village – although how unspoilt can it be when the characters are all incomers living there – it documents the lives of the locals and the visitors and explores the tensions between them. There are some questions raised that are still being discussed nearly 50 years after the book was written about the trade off between economic growth and the destruction of community, but because there are so many characters to cover and so many other themes to insert it is not given the consideration it deserves.

The sheer number of characters means that most of them are little more than motifs; Basil the boorish, snobby English man (whose purpose in the book is non-existent), Ariadne the middle-aged recent divorcee who has embraced the hippy lifestyle to find herself, Lisa the brash rich American kid, Miranda the middle-aged American making use of the young local men. The locals are just as sketchily drawn – especially the former medical student hiding out in a cave for terrorist / anti-government activities. Personally I would have liked some more context to the situation and what he was fighting for.

There are a couple of incidents that shake the full cast of characters, but one of these happens to people that are not characters so it has no impact on the reader, and the other is so quickly and vaguely described that you read through it unmoved. Events are also filtered through so many characters that action is diluted and loses its punch.

Could have been interesting but was made a bore-fest. Best avoided.

[Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are aspects of most every novel I read to appreciate. Blood Tie has some colorful characters and provides a historical and cultural portrayal of Turkey in the 1970’s that I enriched my understanding of that country. I visited Turkey some years ago and my strongest memory was of a country that was at so many different crossroads: cultural, ethnic and religious: a melting pot for hundreds of years. Blood Tie provided a picture of a nation in transition: the traditional life of the village in contrast and conflict with a young nation ready to take its place in the modern world.

Early in the story there was some real humor, where it was clear that the expatriates and the native residents of the towns and villages rarely understood each other and made bad, sometimes hilarious, assumptions about what the other was thinking or saying. I was particularly struck by the Turks use of physical signals to complement their verbal communication. Unfortunately, this aspect of the story quickly shifted to the background. The plot, until the end, was quite slow. I can be happy with a slowly developing plot, but this story just did not capture me.

Blood Tie was awarded the National Book Award in 1978. In 1979 Mary Lee Settle participated as a member of the jury in selecting the winner of the next National Book Award fiction prize. As a result of this experience, in 1980 Settle founded the PEN/Faulkner award; with this award the winner is selected by fellow authors. While I did not love Blood Tie, I appreciate Settle’s efforts in establishing the PEN/Faulkner award; I have read most of the winners of this award and have enjoyed some great reading experiences.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slice of life novel with little plot to move the story along. The lives of a number of characters living in a Turkish community, most transplants, weave in and out of each other. The writing in this NBA winner is excellent. But I did not find the story or characters the least bit compelling. 3.5 stars

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of ex-pats in a Turkish coastal village in the 6o's. Their self absorption and nonchalance when their actions wreak havoc and cause the ruination of the yet discovered paradise is heart breaking and rings so true with what is happening globally today. This is not an easy read but it is beautifully written and the characters will haunt you long after you have finished reading.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A very interesting, very well written, challenging novel. The large number of characters makes the novel at times, a difficult read. The location is a small fishing village of Ceramos, Turkey. A number of Americans have settled in the village over the last three years. All with varying aims. One is an archeologist, another has a large boat and enjoys diving, another is a single divorced woman and another a young rich woman who is trying to find out what it is she actually wants. The Turks living in Ceramos are rich, poor, divers, smugglers, who get along with the ‘American tourists’. A point of conflict in Ceramos is the proposed hotel development on the offshore island of Yazada.

A worthwhile read that will be better appreciated if the reader notes down a brief description of each of the characters. I found it helped my comprehension of the novel as characters reappear, sometimes 50 or more pages later, with little descriptive reminders of who they are!

This book won the 1978 National Book Award for fiction.

[Lucky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much that I purchased a signed copy, which was very hard to come by about 10 years ago. Having married a Turk, I felt a deep kinship with all the author wrote, even though my experiences were 20+ years later. In many ways for me, it was a way to preserve some of my own remembrances of that location and culture. As for the writing itself, it continues to inspire me to try, try, and try again to finish my own pieces of fiction and poetry.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent novel of expats "invading" a nice old seaside town in turkey. a fair amount of sex, scuba, and sun, earth mother goddess and bad old capitalists. lots of funny mis-understandings too. winner of the national book award in what? 1977?

[Mike Zickar · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed like a very personal novel that meant more to the author than it could possibly mean to anybody else. The technical writing is good but there were too many characters that didn't seem distinctive enough. Surprised that this won the National Book Award. Perhaps I just read it at a wrong time in my life.

[Old Man JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book, most of the sentences are short and crisp and, sometimes, almost harsh. The story of ex-patriots in Turkey who for the most part were unlikeable. At times the story seemed to get lost but still was fairly good.

[Kenneth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult work to give a rating to. I had a great deal of trouble focusing on what I was reading. I read enough that this is more likely the book's fault rather than mine (if you'll forgive a little ego). The last twenty pages are where the whole of the preceding narrative starts to become clear, but this isn't a mystery, so that level of confusion for 300+ pages doesn't seem appropriate. I'd like to give Settle the benefit of the doubt that perhaps we are supposed to be confused by the characters and their two-dimensionality because they are all confused, and most are, in fact, two-dimensional.(?)

Ultimately, I gave this work 3 stars because the ending does wrap everything up nicely, and you have a clearer understanding of, if not the plot itself, at least what Settle is attempting to communicate through this work. Also, her descriptions of geography (including underwater) and allusions to the history of the island are beautifully written. I thought about four stars, but 300+ pages of confusion just doesn't merit it.

[Mary Havens · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned on page 36 or so.
This is the second book I’ve abandoned in so many days and I’m thinking I’m in a bit of a slump or, more likely, I have just decided that if a book is not holding my interest, I’m done.
The premise is interesting but I got bogged down in Horst’s minutiae of finding the Endymion temple (?). I’m not even sure if that is what was going on. I skipped ahead a little and there was a very descriptive passage about a statue’s genitals. Referring to my standby of “ain’t nobody got time for that” or, at least, I don’t. Or the will.

[Judy]

The first lines of this book did not pull me in. Neither did the characters nor the plot line. It seemed kind of like a soap opera. The Turks had many cruel or mean people among them. The Americans had high numbers of innocent/naive/stupid people who out of insensitivity or ignorance or both did bad things. Most of the book I ended up skimming.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every once in a while, something struck me as quite beautiful, but it never came together like I kept expecting it to -- although the frequent feeling of not exactly knowing what was going on may not have helped. Really should be 2.5 stars.

[Tom Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though it wasn't a rosy portrayal of Mediterranean ex-pat life, it did make me want to run away to the Aegean for a summer....

[Vel Veeter]

This novel won the National Book Award in 1977. I have read and reviewed a handful of Mary Lee Settle novels, many of which take place in Virginia and West Virginia in various times in the history of those states. She is most well known for writing what is called the Beulah Quintet–five novels that tell the history of a county in West Virginia, starting with the original settlers being forced out of England during the English Civil War and moving toward the incorporation of the county, strikes related to coal mining, and through contemporary de-industrialization and automation.

This novel is a departure from those novels, but like them, seem organically driven from Mary Lee Settle’s biographical ties. This book takes place in a Turkish coastal town and follows a disparate group of characters tied together through acts of accidental and purposeful violence.

It reminds me a lot of books like The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell and The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott, in its portrayal of Western expectation and presence on a much more complex and complicated Eastern setting.

I found this book challenging to read, not because of the complex language, which is….well complex, but because of the specifically fractured story-telling and the complicated structure. We often spend a few paragraphs to a few pages with a character and then move quickly to a new character. The differences between those various sections are often sharp and quick, and the ties knitting them together are not always clear.

It’s not that different from her previous novels in this way, but something feels off about this one.

[Nihar]

কাউকে সাজেস্ট করতে চান? বাসায় গাইগুই করে বসে থাকার চাইতে এইটাইপ কিছু পড়তে পারো বলে দিতেই পারেন!