Serkan Görkemli’s collection Sweet Tooth and Other Stories offers vivid and compassionate glimpses of queer lives in modern Turkey.
Lisa Anderson wrote of the book:
“Almost a novel-in-stories, this collection is a complex, warmly rendered portrait of kuir men and women navigating―both internally and externally―relationships and feelings in Turkey from the 1980s through the aughts. An outstanding and stellar collection.”
In his own words, here is Serkan Görkemli’s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Sweet Tooth and Other Stories:
Many of the stories in Sweet Tooth feature songs and singers as part of the characters’ emotional soundscapes. The following playlist includes classical, pop, musical, protest, and soundtrack songs; much like the collection—which is set in Turkey, the crossroads of the East and the West—the playlist presents a rich mixture of cross-cultural influences.
Theme music of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-85)
He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe – Main Theme – Single by Geek Music | Spotify
I was a shy nine-year-old kid in Çorlu, Turkey, when He-Man first came on the air in 1983, and it quickly became one of my favorite cartoons. Prince Adam wields a sword that transforms him into He-Man, a superhero who wears a chest harness and fur trunks as he fights his archnemesis Skeletor. He-Man represents traditional masculine ideals of power and invincibility that Prince Adam lacks pre-transformation, yet this same transformation also lays bare his male beauty and, therefore, signals queer possibility for the protagonist of “Webbed,” the opening story of my book. As his parents’ normative expectations regarding gender and sexuality close in on him, the eleven-year-old Hasan thinks of the ambivalent figure of Prince Adam/He-Man.
Bülent Ersoy—“Biz Ayrılamayız” (“We Cannot Be Separated,” 1988)
Biz Ayrılamayız – 1. Versiyon – song and lyrics by Bülent Ersoy | Spotify
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Zeki Müren—“Gözlerin Doğuyor Gecelerime” (“Your Eyes Light Up My Nights,” 1988)
Gözlerin Doğuyor Gecelerime – song and lyrics by Zeki Müren | Spotify
My generation of LGBTQ+ Turks grew up listening to Bülent Ersoy, a trans diva and the undisputed queen of classical Turkish music, and the late, great Zeki Müren (1931-1996), a Liberace-like male singer dubbed “Sanat Güneşi” (“the Sun of Art”). I’ve included in this playlist two of my favorite songs of theirs about lovers and longing. When Gökhan, the thirteen-year-old protagonist-narrator of “Big Sister,” mentions their names, he’s referring to the visual, musical, and emotional excess of their gender-bending performances, as well as their delightfully dramatic classical and popular songs. While Gökhan recognizes Ersoy’s and Müren’s queerness, he fears his own too much to appreciate them and their art.
Sezen Aksu—“Beni Kategorize Etme” (“Don’t Categorize Me,” 1989)
Beni Kategorize Etme – song and lyrics by Sezen Aksu | Spotify
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Nilüfer—“Inkâr Etme” (“Don’t Deny It,” 1990)
İnkar Etme – song and lyrics by Nilüfer | Spotify
Female pop stars Sezen Aksu and Nilüfer have been singing about love and heartbreak since the 1970s. In “Kastro,” Hasan and Gökhan, two high-school boys, bond over pop music. Both singers have a long, amazing discography, but I chose these two songs for this playlist because they voice the characters’ different perspectives. Gökhan, the narrator, worries too much about how people view him; Aksu’s “Beni Kategorize Etme” (“Don’t Categorize Me”) reflects his state of mind, torn between what he feels and how he thinks he should act. Hasan cares less about others, but he’s called names and ostracized; the possibility that his best friend might also disavow him and their connection makes Nilüfer’s “Inkâr Etme” (“Don’t Deny It”) tragically appropriate to his point of view.
“The Phantom of the Opera” (1986)
Like the protagonist of “Sweet Tooth,” I was first exposed to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical in college in Turkey—I saw it on Broadway years later and loved it all the more. It’s about unrequited love and the tumult that ensues when the lover realizes that his beloved doesn’t return his affections. That heartbreaking possibility is central to the scene where the would-be couple discusses the song in my book’s title story. Cengiz knows that he is gay, but Gökhan, who’s realizing he might also be gay, cannot yet face it fully. Caught between same-sex desire and the social norms that forbid it, their private selves are in danger of becoming phantom-like.
Ajda Pekkan—“Sana Neler Edeceğim” (“You’ll See What I’ll Do to You,” 1975)
Sana Neler Edeceğim – song and lyrics by Ajda Pekkan | Spotify
Ajda Pekkan, dubbed “Superstar,” has been a famous diva of Turkish pop music for more than fifty years now, and this well-known song of hers, released in 1975, feels timeless. In this provocative song, a woman chides her cheating boyfriend and sings about the thousand punishments she’ll exact on him. Gökhan and Ateş, the twentysomething male protagonists of “Vulcan,” set in late ‘90s Istanbul, hear the song when they go to a bar; they’re newly dating, and neither quite knows if they’re compatible. As a background to their fledgling romance, the song foreshadows possible pitfalls that await them on their journey together.
Tarkan—“Acımayacak” (“It Won’t Hurt,” 2010)
Acımayacak – song and lyrics by Tarkan | Spotify
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Michelle Gurevich of Chinawoman—“Kiss in Taksim Square” (2013)
Kiss in Taksim Square – song and lyrics by Michelle Gurevich | Spotify
Tarkan is a globally famous male Turkish popstar, and “Acımayacak” (“It Won’t Hurt”) is one his most famous—and most erotic—songs. The persona in the song addresses an ingénue who wants to go out to dance but may not be interested in him, so he begs her to come out, reassuring her that “it won’t hurt at all.” Cenk, the bisexual male protagonist in “Pride,” dances to this song at a gay club in Istanbul, which is when he meets Gökhan, and they have a steamy encounter that same night.
“Kiss in Taksim Square” is a haunting protest song written in honor of the Gezi Park civil protests in Istanbul in summer 2013. The persona in the lyrics asks a dear friend to meet in Taksim Square for a drink and a kiss as a form of social protest. Later in “Pride,” Gökhan and Cenk have a date with similar intentions, to participate in the banned Pride March and go to the afterparty. The song’s lyrics warn that one person can ruin good times for everyone, and as the characters sing and dance to the song during the afterparty, they experience a violent incident that’ll change the course of their lives forever, which makes the first song ironic and the second even more poignant.
Belkıs Özener—“Tamba Tumba” (re-released 2011)
Tamba Tumba – song and lyrics by Belkıs Özener | Spotify
Fans of Yeşilçam (Turkish Hollywood) cinema know this earworm of a song as “Tamba Tumba Esmer Bomba,” the brunette bombshell song, from Dünyanın En Güzel Kadını (The Most Beautiful Woman of the World); in this 1968 melodrama about a poor female singer and a rich man who fall for each other, movie star Türkan Şoray’s character sings this song and dances in a crop top and capri pants. Early in “Ingenue,” Gökhan and his boyfriend, who moonlights as a drag queen, text each other about impersonating Şoray before the boyfriend shows up in drag later and meets the protagonist’s father, who is a fan of Şoray, for the first time. All three characters end up watching an all-time classic film starring Şoray, Selvi Boylum, Al Yazmalım (The Girl with the Red Scarf, 1977), that night. The song lyrics describe the brunette bombshell as a “sweet troublemaker,” and the boyfriend character in drag is indeed endearing and helps the estranged father-son begin to repair their troubled relationship.
Serkan Görkemli, who is originally from Turkey, is an associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. His first book, Grassroots Literacies: Lesbian and Gay Activism and the Internet in Turkey, won the 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Lavender Rhetorics Book Award. His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares,the Iowa Review, Epiphany, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Joyland, Foglifter, and Chelsea Station.