Turkey Street, A Lavish Banquet of Language

​Turkey Street, the sequel to Jack Scott’s Perking the Pansies, is a satisfying hail and farewell to the unlikely Muslim country two gays fell in love with, passionately courted, and reluctantly left behind.

Like the first book, this one is a tasty Turkish delight, a mad dervish of colorful characters, and a love song to an adopted country. The main difference I find in these pages is a more tangible undercurrent of sadness and the inevitability of kismet’s farewell kiss. The bitter-sweet texture is what gives this sequel its uniqueness, much as the first one is rare for its witty narrative and remarkable characters.

Happiness is often defined by its opposite. In Turkey Street Scott gives us a symbolic olive tree dedicated to a fallen lover, an orphan lost in a brutal system, and broken family members who pull the heart strings back to England.
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Both Jack (the narrator) and Liam (his husband) have the kind of breezy wit that keeps the story moving with grace and style. Author Scott has the rare ability to speak volumes with a few well chosen words and tongue-in-cheek innuendo. Being a student of language, I appreciate the glossaries at the end—street Turkish and even Brit-speak with more than a little Polari thrown into the mix.

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