Jack and Liam move to Turkey

by Jack Scott

This is Jack’s début book and, as the title suggests, it’s an autobiographical account of Jack and his civil partner Liam’s move to Turkey. Bored with a life of suburban humdrum, stressful jobs, and a comfortably secure but passionately dissatisfying life, they decide on a new start in Turkey. And so their journey begins.

As expat stories go, this might seem straightforward enough – until you remember that Jack and Liam are openly gay and that Turkish society is overwhelmingly Muslim and can be very conservative and conventional.

A disaster waiting to happen? Well, I’m not going to spoil the story for you. But it certainly does add a certain frisson to the narrative. The book is quite a page-turner.

Jack is an expert people-watcher, and much of what makes this book enjoyable is his wry, witty and sometimes downright scathing observations of others. We all know the type of expats who huddle together in groups, with no interests other than reinforcing their superiority over the locals, slagging off their new country, bemoaning what’s become of their old one, and attending regular expat meetings. I’ve heard the type referred to before as [insert name of local British group here]-types. Jack refers to them as “emigreys”. Brilliant!

From grasping expats wanting to profit from other expats, to strange neighbours, to the self-superior and Blighty-hating emigreys, no one escapes Jack’s analysis and description.

Of course there are some very fine people too – among the locals, the expats, and the family and friends Jack and Liam left behind in the UK. And it’s not all laughs. In one or two places the mood turns very dark indeed. In others, there’s a sprinkling of pathos – some of it sad, some of it heartwarming. This adds balance and depth to what might otherwise be just a catalogue of accurately observed, witty and acerbic pen pictures.

It’s a good account of the light and shade of an off-the-wall expat lifestyle, told in a fast-paced and highly amusing way.

If you’d like to read it – and I recommend you do – it’s available from Amazon and other good bookshops. Amazon also sell a Kindle version.

Win a free copy of Perking the Pansies!

Would you like to win a Kindle version? Here’s what to do. Simply comment on this review and say why you would like to win a free copy.

The closing date for entries is 2359 GMT on Thursday 7 June 2012. After that, Jack will come along and choose one lucky winner according to what he thinks is the best comment.

Perking the Pansies

Jack Scott
Paperback, 244 pages
2011, Summertime Publishing
ISBN 978-1904881643
RRP: £9.99

(Or one lucky winner can receive a free copy by commenting below.)

1. I was born on 22 June 1949 in Summit, New Jersey. I later attended various colleges including the Yale School of Drama, where I obtained an MFA. I made a career-transforming choice in 1982. In October 2008, my rendition of an old Abba song reached No.8 in the Portuguese music charts. I received an honorary degree from Harvard University in 2010.
2. I was born on 2 October 1904 in a boarding house of a school in Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire. I later became a pupil at that school but was bullied and became profoundly depressed to the extent that I made several suicide attempts. I later attended Balliol College, Oxford, where I obtained a second-class degree in history. My pinkie helped make me famous. I spent the last years of my life in Vevey, on the Swiss shore of Lake Geneva, where I became good friends with fellow resident Charlie Chaplin.
3. I was born on 25 October 1881 in Málaga in Spain and was baptised Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad. Despite having been an active member of the French Communist Party, I later said of the communists, “I have joined a family, and like all families, it’s full of shit”. I’m associated with a whole string of women, some of them very striking in appearance.
4. I was born on 28 June 1947 in St John’s Wood, London. I later became the country’s youngest barrister at the age of 21. One of my claims to fame is that I had sex with an MP behind the Speaker’s Chair in the House of Commons (but there’s no proof of this). I come from a wealthy family background and am a keen supporter of hunting. I used to hang around with a biker pal, sadly no longer with us.
5. I was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire. Before achieving fame I had a variety of different jobs and careers including teaching English in Portugal. I have a rags-to-riches story in which I progressed from living off social security to being included on the Forbes list of world billionaires. I have frequently kept my admirers waiting until midnight to meet me.

Check your answers here!

1. I was born on 22 June 1949 in Summit, New Jersey…
   Meryl Streep. Born Mary Louise Streep, she studied at Vassar College and Yale before embarking on her hugely successful professional acting career – first on the stage before progressing to TV and then film in 1977. She won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in 1982 film Sophie’s Choice. Her performance of ABBA’s “Mamma Mia” for the eponymous musical film gave her a surprise hit in Portugal.
2. I was born on 2 October 1904 in a boarding house of a school in Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire…
   Graham Greene. Greene suffered from bipolar disorder which plagued him throughout his life but, as he admitted, was also a source of artistic inspiration. His early novel Brighton Rock featured an antihero called Pinkie Brown, played by a young Richard Attenborough in the 1947 film version.
3. I was born on 25 October 1881 in Málaga in Spain…
   Pablo Picasso. His Cubist portraits of women, with numbers of facial features that often vary considerably from the usual complement, aren’t to everyone’s taste. As for his Communism, Salvador Dalí is supposed to have said, “Picasso is a painter, so am I… Picasso is Spanish, so am I, Picasso is a Communist, neither am I.”.
4. I was born on 28 June 1947 in St John’s Wood, London…
   Clarissa Dickson Wright. To date she remains the youngest ever woman called to the English Bar. She joined Jennifer Paterson to make four series of cookery TV programme Two Fat Ladies in the late 1990s, in which Paterson rode a motorbike around various locations in Britain and Ireland with Dickson Wright in a sidecar.
5. I was born on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire…
   J K Rowling. Rowling studied French and Classics at Exeter University before embarking on a string of jobs. At one point in the early 1990s, while completing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, she was living on benefits. In 2004 Forbes listed her as the first person to become a US dollar billionaire by writing books, although she disputed that her wealth ran over the billion-dollar mark. Launches of her later books – where she gave readings and signings – were held at midnight and attended by hundreds of fans each time.

How did you get on? Post a comment and tell us!

1. Peter Pan
2. Villette
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
4. Call the Midwife
5. Jude the Obscure

Check your answers here!

1. Peter Pan
   J M Barrie – or, to give him his full name, Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM. The UK royalties from performances of the stage version, and sales of the novel version, continue to flow to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, to which Barrie bequeathed the rights after his death.
2. Villette
   Charlotte Brontë. Villette was her third novel, and the last published in her lifetime before her death in 1855 at the age of just 38.
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
   Susanna Clarke. An alternative history of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars written in a pastiche early nineteenth-century style, it took her ten years to write – but publishers Bloomsbury were so sure it would be a success they paid her a £1 million advance!
4. Call the Midwife
   Jennifer Worth. It’s the first in a three-part memoir of her experiences as a district nurse and midwife in the East End of London in the 1950s, and has become a popular BBC TV series starring Jessica Raine in the lead role.
5. Jude the Obscure
   Thomas Hardy. Although published more than 30 years before Hardy’s death, Jude was his last novel – he regarded himself primarily as a poet, and harsh criticism of the novel’s controversial social, sexual and religious themes led him to abandon novel-writing altogether.

How did you get on? Post a comment and tell us!