‘All My Mother’s Lovers’ a story about power of love

“All My Mother’s Lovers” by Ilana Masad (Dutton) is a story of queerness, love and family like you’ve never seen it before.

After the unexpected death of her mother, Iris, 27-year-old Maggie discovers five letters tucked into Iris’s will. The letters are addressed to five men that Maggie has never once heard Iris mention.

Desperate to find out who these men could possibly be, Maggie leaves behind her grieving father and brother (as well as her new girlfriend with whom she is falling madly in love) and embarks on a quest to hand deliver each letter.

Along her journey, Maggie learns she knew far less about both her mother and her father than she ever thought possible. Maggie’s relationship with Iris had always been strained, in part due to Iris’s inability to accept Maggie’s sexuality. The men Maggie meets challenge her to see Iris not only as her flawed mother, but also as a human being filled with her own complex emotions and desires.

“All My Mother’s Lovers” is a wholly unique exploration of identity, sexuality and the all-consuming power of love.

Sullivan family, which churned out generation after generation of stars (think: the Hanks, the Smiths).

During a family gathering at her grandfather’s sprawling home in California’s Big Sur, Caitlyn played a game of hide and seek that was supposed to be forgetful, but wound up changing her life. The perfect hiding place was actually a trap.

Caitlyn’s kidnapping, a riveting and suspenseful ordeal that makes your heart race as you learn each twist and turn, happens at the beginning of the book. But its aftermath and the long-term hold it has on her life impacts everything: what family means to her, her relationship with her loved ones, where she lives, her career and who she loves. might not appreciate the novel as much at first, but don’t be afraid to give it a try.

Let’s start with the characters: First there’s Catherine, an expat married to an influential Turkish real estate developer named Murat. Catherine and Murat have an adopted son, William, whose lineage is one of the book’s slowly revealed mysteries. And Catherine has a lover, Peter, who Ackerman imagines snapping the real-life famous photo referenced in the book’s title during the Gezi Park protests. Finally, there’s Kristin, an employee at the U.S. consulate who does much more than facilitate naturalization paperwork. She’s not quite CIA, but plays the roll of chess master.

The central plot of the novel takes place in Istanbul over the course of a single day in November 2013, as Catherine decides to leave Murat and return to America with their son. Ackerman uses that day to frame the rest of the novel — flashing back in alternating chapters to fill in the character’s stories and revel their connections to each other. The time hopping can be jarring, but close readers are rewarded for their attention.

Turkey is the real star of the book. Ackerman loves the setting and his descriptions are some of the bestwritten lines of the book. Here’s sunset in Gezi Park at the height of the protests: “The wide boulevard gleamed in the fading light, curving in and out like a sheet of iron.”

The whole book is taut, balanced between order and chaos, just like Istanbul in that summer of 2013. It’s a book that demands focus, best enjoyed in just a few sittings.