An Assyro-Babylonian Pregnant Goddess: An Excerpt from: The Saint Of Incipient Insanities

Abstract

The Saint of Incipient Insanities is a comic narrative about a group of young people, mostly foreigners in Boston, and their never-ending quest for happiness and belonging. The two central characters are Omer and Gail who come from utterly different cultural and religious backgrounds and yet attempt to fly together. They resemble the great mystic Rumi's lame birds the stork and the crow who paradoxically find the strength to fly in the very union of being lame. The author explores the themes of love, friendship, religion, nationality, belonging, xenophobia, homophobia, culture, and exile. As the story unfolds, the characters in the novel will constantly challenge each other's preconceived identities, and in turn, find their own prejudices contested. As a newcomer, Omer is not supposed to feel at home in Boston, yet he displays uncanny skills of adaptation, thanks to his hyper-exposure to American music and popular culture while growing up in Turkey. On the other hand, Gail remains unhoused in her native Boston not only because of her gender politics and her unquenchable spirituality but also because the contexts in which she seeks to affirm her being are themselves made of shifting sand. In the course of the novel, the author seeks to render a lucid critique of deracination as a terminal, existential condition underlying the paradigms of personal identity in this period of pervasive globalization.