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The Gendarme
The Gendarme
The Gendarme
Audiobook10 hours

The Gendarme

Written by Mark T. Mustian

Narrated by Neil Shah

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

Author and attorney Mark T. Mustian has won rave reviews for his ambitious novel, The Gendarme. Plagued by failing memory, Emmett Conn dreams he was a gendarme in World War I and that his great love, Araxie, was separated from him after the war. With the lines between past and present blurring more every day, Emmett sets out to find the woman he lost all those decades ago. "Extraordinary . This is a harrowing and truly important novel by a splendid American writer."-Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 8, 2010
ISBN9781449839796
The Gendarme

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Gendarme, by Mark T. Mustian, is a multifaceted journey through the mysteries of the human condition. It is an odd, exotic, and seductive love story told against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide. The work is full of extreme emotional and psychological juxtapositions. On one hand, there is exceptional beauty, tenderness, kindness, and innocents. On the other, there are scenes depicting an array of the worst human atrocities, all historically correct within the context of the Armenian Genocide. Thankfully, the later are unveiled through vague dream-like recovered memories. These are easier to deal with, but nonetheless devastating in their impact. The novel is a fierce compelling work that commands the reader's attention as it weaves a web of tales in strange, haunting, and distant places—in another world, another time. At its heart, the novel deals with powerful themes of inhumanity, guilt, absolution, and forgiveness. We learn the universal truth that good people are capable of great evil.It tells the story of Emmett Conn, a 92-year-old immigrant Turkish-American who develops a brain tumor and starts remembering suppressed memories from his youth in Turkey. At that time, he was 17-years-old Ahmet Khan and served as a gendarme escorting a group of 2,000 Armenian deportees on a forced march out of the country. Only 65 deportees survive the ordeal. Along the way, there are horrific acts of inhumanity. Emmett Conn's recovered memories assault him in every more persistent streams of indistinct dreams. At first, he denies that these dreams reveal anything about his own personal past, but slowly he begins to understand the truth. We go along with him as he recovers the details of this journey, the details of his past. We learn about the atrocities that he and his fellow gendarmes committed. But most of all, we learn about the beautiful young Armenian girl, Araxie, who he loves and tries to protect. I have read numerous academic and historical accounts concerning the Armenian Genocide—about the forced mass deportations and related deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is generally agreed that these events occurred, but the Turkish government and many other nations deny that they constitute genocide. This book placed me in the emotional heart of this issue. It forced me to make up my mind. Personally, I am left with no doubt whatsoever that these events constitute genocide. But equally as strong, I am compelled to understand and forgive. Good men can do evil things—this is the central mystery of the human condition. This is something we all must all come to terms with.The author is an accomplished storyteller and an astute literary talent. "Gendarme" is popular fiction, but it has strong literary overtones. The prose is crisp, fresh, and rich; best of all, it never gets in the way of the story. The action is taut and purposeful. As the story progresses there is an ever-quickening rhythm that compels the reader to find out how this strange story concludes. Personally, I had problems with the ending. The ending read more like what you'd find at the end of a blockbuster movie rather than what you'd find at the end of a fine book dealing with such complex psychological and historical themes. But I am usually the odd person out on such matters. I suspect, in all likelihood, the ending will thoroughly please most readers of popular fiction. The novel is exceptionally cinematic. I would not be surprised to see it adapted into a screenplay and made into a major motion picture. If this happened, I'd be one of the first to see it. I would also not be surprised to see this novel work its way onto major bestseller lists. Why? Because it is a good story; it is well written; and it is on a topic that is of interest to a wide range of readers.I will recommend this book to my friends. It will make a terrific book club selection.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very interesting book. Perspective flashes back and forth between 1990 when the narrator is 92 years old and WWI during the Armenian genocide. It dances between whether the dreams of WWI are memories or fantasies. My only complaint is that the part of the narrative in 1990 didn't hold my attention as well as the earlier memories. But the descriptions of the atrocities during the march of the Armenians were full of beautiful savagery. They really draw you in to the unspeakable cruelty that was committed, and let you share the crippling burden of having such horrifying memories recalled after decades of amnesia. Is it better to not be able to recall your past, or to remember it in painful detail? Is the power of forgiveness strong enough to heal such memories? The images will linger in your imagination long after you put the book down.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I just finished reading Mark Mustian's book the Gendarme. I must say I was thrilled to have won this book in the giveaway, because the subject matter was of interest to me. I had read Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" and Louis De Berniere's excellent treatise on the subject of the turmoil in Turkey and the Armenian genocide: "Birds Without Wings". I had even read the more lighthearted, "The Bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Shafak. This books gave very heartfelt accounts of the Armenian genocide. Mark Mustian's book however, has one glaring anachronism. It's main character, Ahmet Khan. He is 92 years old and suffering from a malignant brain tumor that triggers his return to memories of his participation in the unspeakable acts against the Armenians and his love for an enigmatic girl with mismatched eyes in his charge. Ahmet or Emmet as he is called in America has a series of dreams that caause him to recall his long forgotten role in the conflict. It seems to have been a lawless time, with enemies among his own being more dangerous than the his apponents. I was expected to suspend logic as the 92 year old cancer patient escapes after radiation treatments on a bicycle. Bicycles to a Grayhound Bus Depot, takes the bus to Tallahassee, hails a taxi to the airport, flies to Charlotte, and then rents a car and drives to New York City.It would have served the story better if the author had placed the action twenty years sooner. And it would have eliminated the problem of him having found his enigmatic love deceased and then having her grandaughter assume the first person of Araxnie to tell her part of the story.I was a little put off by his telling the story as if he was an unwitting participant, and later admitting to atrocities he committed as though it were someone else.I am interested in history but when it seems impossible as it relates to the present it defeats the purpose.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian was an intriguing read I couldn't put down. The story alternates between a 92-year-old man facing hospitalization and an empty past at the end of his life and his dreams, memories of the youth he forgot: serving as a gendarme at the start of WWI. Mustian captures the dream state perfectly; every sensation is real and recognizable, making this story incredibly believable. The language is beautiful but not complicated. Mustian would make just as good a poet as he is a novelist. Besides the impressive prose, this book brings forward painful and little-known truths about a genocide much ignored by the history books and sends a clear and honest message about the power of memory and forgiveness.Everyone should read this book at some point in their schooling or adult life. The lessons presented are too important to be ignored.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mark Mustian weaves the past and present together forming a rich and complicated tapestry. The Gendarme is a beautifully written story of pain, struggle, and loss. Set partly amid the atrocities of the Armenian genocide, The Gendarme tackles the some of the most harrowing acts against humanity. Emmett Conn is an engaging and multi-faceted character who is capable of deep love and passion while subsequently committing horrific acts. The Gendarme is an excellent book club selection.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Emmett Conn is a family man, a World War I veteran, and a man with a strong work ethic. He is also a man missing part of his past. As a Turk, he fought against the British in WW I, but ended up in a British hospital with head injuries so extensive he wasn’t immediately recognized as an enemy soldier. He has no memory of his life before the hospital. After falling in love with his American nurse, Carol, he marries her and follows her to the US, starting a new life as a husband and father and good citizen.When a brain tumor hits Emmett as an elderly widower, it brings with it memories that at first he doesn’t realize are his own – memories of being a gendarme, herding Armenians out of Turkey, participating in the horrific persecution and genocide of the Armenian people during WW I. As his memories become clearer and more insistent, Emmett must face up to the truth of his past – and the question of what happened to Araxie, the young Armenia girl with whom he formed an attachment. Can he live with the truth of who he was and what he did?Before reading The Gendarme, I had never heard the story of the Armenian genocide. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read, but it comes with the burden of discovering new-to-me atrocities that humans have perpetrated on one another throughout the ages. I am continually astounded by the depth of evil that resides in the human heart – and it is only in knowing that humans are also capable of great sacrifice and compassion and love that I find comfort.Emmett is a perplexing character – there is such a dichotomy between the man he was as a gendarme in Turkey and the man he became in the United States. He prided himself on being a good husband, father, and provider, a hard worker and a moral citizen. His head injury during the war caused extreme memory loss, and yet I couldn’t help but wonder if, subconsciously, he was trying to atone for the terrible things he did as a gendarme. His reaction to the uncovering of his memories was intriguing – at first, he did not want to admit that they were memories, wanting to believe that these acts had been committed by someone else. He is left to wrestle with the most basic of questions: what kind of man is he?Mustian’s first novel is astounding in both the beauty of the writing and the depth of story and character. He has brought to life an episode from history and yet done it the hard way – by writing from the perspective of perpetrator rather than victim, and yet still giving the reader a sympathetic character. And in the midst of the haunting story, he deals with issues like guilt, atonement, and forgiveness. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    From my book review blog Rundpinne..."A deeply dark and disturbing book, The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian takes the reader back to the Armenian Genocide through the mind of 92-year-old Emmett Conn who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and begins to recall flashes of memory of another life. Previously Emmett Conn had no memories of his life before he was 20, until now as these flashbacks of memories become more cohesive and he recalls with vivid and raw detail his duties as a 17-year-old Gendarme in Turkey. His name then was Ahmet Khan and he begins to recall the roll he played in the Armenian Genocide. Mustian takes the reader through a stark, bleak, and dark look at a dreadful time in history and the resilience of life, endurance and love transcending such horrific circumstances. Mustian clearly and vividly portrays this dark time in history but does not leave the reader feeling hopeless, as Mustian interweaves WWI with the present and shows how love triumphs adversity. I applaud Mustian for bringing to life a time many have never even heard about, a dreadful time in history that to this day is often ignored or overlooked. Deeply dark, haunting, and brilliantly written, I recommend The Gendarme without reservation to any reader and to book discussion groups. Mustian is an author to keep an eye on."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Every once in a while you read a book that just blows your socks off. For me, The Gendarme by Mark Mustian is such a book. The novel begins with Emmett Conn, a ninety-two year old Turkish-American whose health is starting to fail. Emmett is hardworking, a man who spent years taking care of his ailing and difficult wife, and a father and grandfather who tries to be a better one. I empathized with him immediately as a good and caring man.Emmett is diagnosed with a brain tumor and as his health worsens, he begins having vivid dreams of himself as a young man. Unusual because he was injured in WWI and has had amnesia of his early life every since waking up in a British hospital. The dreams are disturbing to him, and to the reader, because he begins to piece together that he had a role in the Armenian genocide. The novel switches back and forth between the present and the past, until Emmett Conn, or Ahmet Kahn, has difficulty staying in the present. Nor does he particularly want to, because in the dreams he can be with the young Armenian woman with whom he was passionately in love.The plot drew me in from page one and never let go. In some novels, the shifts between past and present can be jarring, but not so here, where the old man's dreams are so integrated with his life, that they are nearly seamless. In addition, the characters are so well drawn, lifelike, and captivating that I felt as though I knew them, or wanted to. I sympathized with their situations, wanted them to find happiness, and despaired at their deparate circumstances. And yet. And yet, Emmett Conn was a willing participant in the Armenian genocide. How can one reconcile such actions with the character one has grown to love? Is it possible to ever atone for such deeds? Can love for one transcend the cruelty to hundreds, thousands? Is it possible to move beyond the horror, either as a perpetrator, a victim, or a country? What role does memory play in atonement? Can love forgive even the worst of actions?Although I rarely give a book five stars until I have been drawn to reread it at least once, I am incapable of giving this book anything less. It is an amazing novel that I recommend to everyone as a must read. It will be available in the US in September.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A woman with ‘mismatched eyes, one dark, the other light’ and a man following these eyes for almost one hundred years. Meantime history follows its path changing the life of these two people. In all these events memory plays one of its best game: memories. dreams, yesterday, today are playing in a turbulent back and forth. Emmett Conn is a ninety-two-year-old man, ex-gendarme, when he was young he escorted Armenians from Turkey before the World War I. During this perilous journey he met Araxie. The book starts with a question: ‘Ninety-two years have passed - for what? For what?’ (p.5) And after this question follow several dreams of an old man, or are these dreams only memories?Emmett and Araxie met the first time as in a dream, without contact: ‘What is your name? She does not respond, or if she does, her name is lost in the leaves.’ (p.12)As Atom Egoyan has written in the advance praise for The Gendarme: ‘Ahmet Khan’s spiritual transition to Emmett Cann is emotionally resonant’; I’d say also Emmett transition to Ahmet. At the end of the book Ahmet and Emmett become one person, the ends of all stories become just one end. After Ahmet becomes Emmett in America and the old man what happened? Why Emmett choose Carol instead of rescuing Araxie? Could be the following some of the answers?‘Race and division and circumstance - these surmountable, all! ... I should speak, I should offer support for rebirth, transformation, but instead I am frozen, my tongue stilled and thick. What is my direction? My offer? ... I could blame the heavens, blame fate or luck or inheritance, but it is all to no gain. My shame is boundless, my guilt so heavy it overweight even truth!’ (p. 198)‘I am from Turkey. I fought in the war. I was injured, then rescued. An immigrant. A father ... I was a gendarme, a ... murderer. That this is my shame.’ (p. 208) Could shame affect a whole life? Maybe not, there is an answer at the end: ‘Things weave in and out. I am there, I am here. At the end the past is so great it intrudes like an army!’ (p. 274) The past could be dangerous, but it’s great. Until the last chapters I had many doubts about The Gendarme: Is this book too ‘cold’? I mean, written as a lecture about elderly people and old history. Although the passages from one story (old Emmett) to another one (young Ahmet) seems a relieve of the pain of remembering or dreaming; I preferred the narration of the old Emmett: point of view of an old man like a camera that watches, records, and put down. Mustian telling the deportation’s story on Turkey border is lacking of ‘spicy’: the deportation is narrated as a summary from history books, so I’d have preferred smell of horses, carpets full of sand, sounds of small bells from running horses, shouting, etc.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a quick but deep read that illuminates a little-known piece of history: the Armenian genocide. Emmett Conn is an elderly man who has lived a quiet life, when suddenly he is beset with headaches and memories that seem to belong to someone else. In his early life, he was actually a gendarme, a soldier who "escorted" Armenian citizens out of Turkey. During the trek he falls in love with one of the refugees and his feelings for her cause him to question his actions and the reasons for the genocide. The novel provides a fascinating look at memory and perspective. Most interesting to me was the way in which the young Emmett justified his actions, and the tactics and messages that were used to justify racism, rape and murder. It's chilling to see how easily young men were convinced that a certain ethnic group was the enemy and how this dehumanized an entire population. The novel is very well-written, and the back and forth between past and present is disorienting in a way that allows us to feel the confusion the way that Emmett must have felt it. The ending felt a bit rushed to me, and somewhat unbelievable in ways I can't articulate without spoiling it. Despite that, however, the novel as a whole was a very worthwhile read and serves to bring to life a buried part of history.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Gendarme by Mark Mustian8 out of 10This was truly an amazing book. It took me on a journey in many ways. I knew very little of the Armenian deportation from Turkey that took place prior to the First World War. However, having a Turkish Armenian friend I did have an inkling of the history, but "The Gendarme" illustrated the depth of the atrocities with vivid realism. Mustian does not shirk from the brutal desperation and baseness of the human condition in these circumstances. At times the graphic descriptions made me gasp...and I don't consider myself easily shocked.It began with our narrator and central character’s diagnosis with Glioblastoma Multiformae, and subsequent Radiation Therapy. As I am currently an Oncology Nurse in a Radiation Department this is something I treat on a daily basis and I found it most intriguing to see the experience and progression of this disease from the patient’s perspective. I also found it hard to fault on a clinical level and I was most sympathetic to the central character’s increasing retreat into a past that I also found more compelling than the bewildering, daily humiliation of becoming increasingly dependent on family and medical professionals. Even when he was held against his will in a psychiatric unit, I found the description to be detailed and authentic—and I am generally a merciless critic of medical drama, having previously worked in psychiatry for six years in New York.I especially found the flashbacks to a London interesting as I have been researching nursing in the same period of time—as my grandmother was a nurse during this time and place and I trained to be a nurse myself in London, about twenty years ago. I could just imagine the Nightingale wards and the injured soldiers “back from the front” and I am particularly sympathetic as to how ill-equipped the nurses were to deal with so much of the pain and suffering in this time. It was convincing how Carol and Ahmet fell for each other in this context and strangely fulfilling that Ahmet ended up caring for her at the end of her own life.Freedom of culture and identity are crucial to the story. It is a bold choice to tell this from the point of view of the captor—the Gendarme, and ironic that the tale is told at a time in his life that his own freedoms are being gradually whittled away by his physical and mental deterioration. Also mesmerizing, how sympathetic the Gendarme becomes to one of his charges, Araxie, ultimately deserting and plotting a new life in the place where all things are possible—America. The place where religious freedom is constitutionally protected, the only place where they can possibly imagine being together. It is skillfully handled how Ahmet shifts from captor to protector, then to admirer and ultimately to heartbroken lover. It is also perceptive that we gain insight from Emmet as exactly what his “freedom” in America has truly meant, the hard work, the small racist slights that he has tolerated over the years. As an immigrant into this country myself in a multiracial marriage, I have an appreciation of this.I found the commentary on rape and prostitution to be intriguing—rape is evidenced as a weapon or war and prostitution is currency. At the same time, Ahmet (Emmet) protects Araxie’s innocence with his very life, her purity is something that he recognizes and is compelled to protect at all costs. Is she symbolic of her people for Mustian? Araxie is not naïve or ignorant. On the contrary, she is evidently educated and well-informed, easily an intellectual match for Ahmet. There is a constant grappling with the concept of faith versus fate—indeed, if you accept the will of Allah are they one and the same? To what extent is one in control of one’s own destiny? How long must you trust in the will of God—especially in the face of an unfathomable reality? It was satisfying ultimately to see Emmet (Ahmet) take his own destiny into his own hands and go on his own pilgrimage to find the one he always loved. The way in which we are treated to shards of memory as the story pieces together builds tension as we have the sense of time running out for Emmet. I thought this was a well-crafted story that served a broader purpose—to educate and compel the reader to think a little more deeply about the values that one holds with respect to identity, culture, religious belief, freedom and the freedoms that people are deprived of; both historically and in present day.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Emmett Conn is a man without a past, having suffered a traumatic brain injury during the first World War that left him with only a few scattered memories of the first eighteen years of his life. Mistaken for a British soldier, he was taken to England to recuperate, where he met Carol, an American nurse. He married, had two children, and lived a respectable life. Only after being diagnosed with a brain tumor does Emmett begin to have vivid dreams of a life that he has forgotten for decades, a life in which he is Ahmet Khan, a gendarme participating in genocide in Turkey.The book is interesting; I have never read, or even heard, much about the Armenian genocide during the first World War (which, I suppose, is often overshadowed by the Holocaust, and which I have studied in much more detail, for the obvious reason of my history). I want to say that the book grabbed me, like it has so many other readers, but sadly, it really didn't. I found myself pushing through some of the chapters. I suppose that I found it nearly impossible to empathize with Emmett/Ahmet, because I went into the story knowing that he was a perpetrator, and I just can't bring myself to like him. Once again, I think that is because of my history.The book is well-written, and it deals with the often-overlooked genocide of the Armenians. I'd recommend it, but I personally wasn't as drawn into the book as I wish I'd been.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sometimes when we speak of tragedy or atrocities in wartime, we can quickly dismiss it. It was war, we couldn't take chances, who I am to judge their actions? When someone tries to sell a story about an atrocity, particularly one that people want to keep hidden, it's uncomfortable. I remember reading about Vonnegut trying to sell a story about the firebombing at Dresden. No one wanted to know anything about it, so he turned it into Slaughterhouse-Five. The Gendarme does the same thing. The forced evacuation of Armenians by the Turks in World War I was a genocide. When we look at these horror stories in the face, we often have to look away. It is too much to bear. The author Mustian tries to tell this story in a way that is bearable, but intimate and detailed. Emmet Cohn has lived a long life. At 92, he has witnessed his children grow up and his wife pass away, but his past before coming to America has been shrouded. A Turkish immigrant, he built a life with a young nurse, promising to marry him and take him to America. He fought with the Turks during World War I at Gallipoli, but in the chaos of war, he was mistaken as a wounded Englishman. Now at 92, a brain tumor has forced him to remember his past. Realizing it is something he wished he hadn't remembered. Dreams reveal his past as a Gendarme. A Turkish officer who forced Armenians on a long trek hundreds of miles to Syria, with most dying on the way. He begins to remember a girl, Araxie, and his world unravels. The part I loved the most was the contrast of his duty and love. He is responsible. He has placed a woman he loves in harms way and there is nothing he can do to change the circumstance. This guilt carries the story forward. A well-told story with a plot that quickens over the length of the novel. Favorite Passages A silence follows and I am thinking, suddenly, of these hells scattered just beyond my own. Little, big, black, white, old new, tired, alive. Pulling, with a force wrought from God, curling, perhaps intertwining. I am alone here. Are they not also alone? Alone in our hells with no floor? p. 236 ...each time we remember, we change the thing remembered in the smallest of ways... p. 281 I've always found it interesting that there is no blood test--nothing that I know of--to distinguish Armenians from Turks, Christians from Muslims, saints from sinners, the good from the bad. In the end, who really knows--maybe God? p. 283
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Gendarme is the story of 92 year old World War I veteran Emmett Conn. He has few memories of the war due to memory loss caused by a war injury. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, he remembers the war in his dreams and is haunted by these memories. Emmett dreams he's a gendarme, escorting Armenians from Turkey during the Armenian Genocide. During this trek, he meets the love of his life an Armenian girl named Araxie. After remembering her in his dreams, Emmett decides he must track her down to ask her forgiveness.I knew very little about this period in history and learned a lot about it from this book and I would like to learn even more. I thought the author did a great job of making the reader feel what an elderly man in the last stages of his life might feel like - confused, regretful, detached, etc. At the same time, the younger version of Emmett Conn(Ahmet Khan)has a totally different voice - naive, headstrong, stubborn. Both story lines were compelling - it was hard to put this book down.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Emmett Conn is 92 years old, or so he thinks. After suffering a head injury during World War I, most of his prior memory was erased. Since then, he fell in love with a nurse who took a special interest in him, emigrated to her home country, and lived out his days working as a plumber and doing his very best to live the American dream and pass it on to his two daughters. Even as he has aged, he has stayed in remarkably good health, that is, until he begins to have seizures which reveal he has a brain tumor. Even more disconcerting, however, are his incredibly detailed dreams, dreams of a past that he's sure could not even be possible. He dreams of a time when his name was not Emmett, but Ahmet Khan, and he was serving as a gendarme escorting captive Armenians out of Turkey. He dreams of an Armenian girl who intoxicates him with her beauty and her mismatched eyes. What he has known about himself for decades tells him that these dreams can't be true, but the dreams are too real to deny. Mustian expertly weaves together the two narratives, one the current life and the remembered times of Emmett Conn, the other the strikingly realistic dreams of the terrible journey out of Turkey with a band of suffering refugees riddled with merciless cruelty and an unexpected and forbidden love. The present day narration is a seemingly spot-on depiction of an aging widower. He recalls a life he considers to be well-lived, full of hard work and family. He wonders how he failed to pass on his hard-won life and rigid values to his two daughters who seem to care about him but fail to visit and seem all too willing to concede his care to strangers. He even makes wry, almost laugh out loud funny observations about his dearly departed wife's relatives, really the only relatives he himself has left. The other narration fleshes out the details of an incident that is still a taboo topic for many Turks. It effectively transports us to a different time and a different place. It reveals the raw cruelty and the terrible suffering inflicted by the gendarmes on their captive refugees. At the same time, though, Mustian manages to put a very human face on a tragedy using a present-day narrator we have come to like who is seeing this all anew, but in a way that feels distinctly familiar. Emmett's disbelief and regret at the actions of his former self, Ahmet, casts the events in an atypical and disconcertingly sympathetic light as we even watch Ahmet change as he falls in love with this unusual girl that he never got the chance to apologize to.The Gendarme is a brave and haunting portrait of yet another wartime tragedy that many would rather see pushed under the rug, but it is also a story of love that transcends even the worst circumstances. The Gendarme is a powerful book that definitely makes Mustian an author to watch.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is much more than just the story of Emmett Conn, war veteran, gendarme. It is a story of a piece of history that I had never known existed. As historical fiction, this story needed to be told - and the manner in which it is told will have you lingering over what it is you do know, what you thought you knew, what is fiction, what is real and what our minds are capable of. The retreat and resurgence of implicit memory is medicinal in some situations and at the same time an affliction. This is a book you must read, a book you must discuss, a book that will remain with you long after you've closed the cover.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm just going to give you the synopsis from the back of the book so I don't accidentally spoil something."To those around him, Emmett Conn is an old man on the verge of senility. A World War I veteran, he's been affected by memory loss since being injured in the war. Now, at the end of his life, he's beset by memories of events he andothers have denied or purposely forgotten.In Emmett's dreams he's a gendarme, escorting Armenians from Turkey. A young woman among them, Araxie, captivates and enthralls him. She becomes the love of his life. But then the trek ends, the war separates them. He is injured. Seven decades later, as his grasp on the boundaries between past and present begins to break down, he sets out on a final journey, to find Araxie, and beg her forgiveness."This is an amazing book. I tend to avoid war stories, but this is a war story like The English Patient is a war story or like the musical Miss Saigon is a war story. They are, of course, but they're also love stories and stories about loss and betrayal and the best and worst of humanity.I cannot recommend this book enough.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I was drawn to the cover of this book at the public library a few months ago, but past it up because I wasn't sure if the story was as riveting as the cover. Then two of the book bloggers I follow (Medieval Bookworm & S Krishna) both posted reviews about the book that got be intrigued with it again. Luckily I found an ARC copy at work on the giveaway shelf. I definitely wasn't prepared for the amount of description of the violence and sexual acts that the main character and others participated in. Unfortunately, I've become a little desensitized to violence and vivid descriptions, but this book caused some weird dreams for me as well. It was also hard to switch between Emmett's flashbacks through his dreams and the present day at first. Telling the story from the "immigrant" perspective was compelling. Emmett's struggle to answer the question of where he was from reminded the reader throughout the book what his mindset was. Before reading this book, I had no idea about the supposed genocide in Armenia and Turkey during World War II. Reading the author chat at the end of the book also informed me about the current day sensitivity towards this subject as well.This book did his a note with me since I could easily see my grandfather, a World War II veteran who struggled with dementia at the end of his life, within Emmett's actions. I could relate to Emmett's daughter as she adjusted to her father's behavior. While this book can be squeamish at times, it does take modern day themes and intertwines them with a historical setting that most of us are not familiar with.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Emmett Conn is 92 years old. Recently widowed and suffering from a brain tumor, he is plagued with headaches and bad dreams. The dreams come to him like a movie being played out in his mind, scene by scene. They begin to feel more like memories than dreams, but a head injury suffered during WWI left Emmett with very little memory of the war or his life before it. In these dreams Emmett is a Turkish gendarme, a position that one would hold before becoming a soldier. He is known as Ahmet Khan, the name he had before entering the United States. His assignment as a gendarme is to lead a group of Armenian deportees from their homes in Turkey to a camp in Syria. He leads this caravan of sick and dying men, women, and children for several weeks. Most of these deportees, considered a security threat by the Turkish government, die along the way. Though he wishes that it were not true, Emmett soon accepts that these are memories of his past; a past in which he played a terrible role in an almost forgotten genocide. It is also a past of forbidden love and the search for redemption. This story alternates between Emmett’s life as it was, slowly revealed to him in his dreams, and his life as it is now. A life filled with doctors’ visits, his daughters growing concern for his physical and mental health, and the awful memories that begin to reveal themselves. It is a story of the horrors of war and the dangers of prejudice. It is also a story of forgiveness-of yourself and those who cause you harm. This is a remarkable novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Gendarme by Mark T. Mustian is a novel about a Turkish man who is dying. As the tumor continues to grow in his brain; he is plagued by memories of a time in his life when he was a Gendarme in the Turkish army deporting Armenians from their homeland. Ahmet Kahn is Emmett Conn a 92 year old American citizen who raised a family in America. He married Carol an American nurse who was working in a London hospital where he was a patient recuperating from head wounds he received during the Turkish war. Until his illness and the dreams that have come with it; he has had total amnesia regarding his life before his head wound.The Gendarme brings the Armenian genocide to the reader in great detail. The author did significant research into the deportation of the Armenian people from Turkey. The Turkish nation remains in denial of this genocide to the extent that it is a crime to speak of it in Turkey. This story bears witness to the horrific acts the Armenian people were subjected to as they were deported. Mustian has done an excellent job bringing attention to this little discussed genocide in the telling of The Gendarme. Bravo!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An old man's brain tumor triggers his long-forgotten memories of WWI. As we ricochet back and forth between Turkey in 1915 and 75 years later in Georgia (USA), Emmett's memories of his 17-year-old self serving as a guard for captured Armenians begin to haunt his dreams. His past shame hits him hard until he finds he has something to live for...atonement.I really enjoyed this book about an event in history I knew absolutely nothing about. The five-page author's note about the Armenian genocide amd its coverup in WWI was fascinating. If I had read it before starting the book, it might have enhanced my understanding and enjoyment even more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Gendarme is the debut novel by Mark T. Mustian and features a little-known aspect of World War I history - the genocide of Armenian people living in Turkey. For me, when a writer casts a spotlight on an aspect of history worth knowing about, I give him my fullest accolades. I walked away from The Gendarme with new knowledge and appreciation for what the Armenians endured in the early 1900's.The story is narrated by 92-year-old Emmet, who is suffering from a brain tumor that results in vivid dreams from his youth. Interestingly, he dreams in chronological order, so each time he sleeps, Emmett remembers another nugget from his past. He realizes he was a "gendarme" - a Turkish guard who escorted Armenian refugees out of Turkey into Syria. The conditions of the march were horrible with many Armenians dying along the way. He becomes entranced by an Armenian girl, and as they spend more time together, they begin a friendship and eventually fall in love.The flashback/dream stories were well told and vivid with detail. Emmet was not perfect, and Mustian made no attempt to make him into a hero. The modern aspects of Emmet's life, though, felt very contrived and unbelievable to me. The story may have been better as a reflection of Emmet's past without the complications of his modern life. The ending especially was unrealistic and left me dissatisfied. Sometimes, it's better to not end a story with a pretty bow on it.With that said, I would recommend The Gendarme for its historical research and storyline. Mustain wrote well and kept my interest. I will be curious to read what others think about his debut book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    THE GENDARME by Mark T. MustianThis is the story of human identity, both literally and figuratively, as 92-year-old Emmett Conn wakes up in an ambulance in the 1990’s in Wadesboro, GA. He is asked his name and the first word that forms in his mind is not in English, the first clue that begins our journey with Emmett as he reconstructs a life he hasn’t been able to remember for 70 years. The revelation occurs through Emmett’s “dreams” that result from a brain tumor, dreams that are actually memories of his life as Ahmet Khan, a Turkish gendarme during the Armenian exodus. Mustian writes Conn/Khan’s character through first person narrative, resulting in such a thorough, three-dimensional description that I feel like I’ve known him for years. The other characters are less well developed, but this serves well to focus our attention and emotions on Conn/Khan. As a gendarme in the early 1900’s who is responsible for bringing a group of Armenian refugees hundreds of miles on foot under horrific conditions Khan deals with issues of violence and suffering, sacrifice and kindness, and ethical dilemma unlike anything he will experience again. As an immigrant who has made a new life for himself as Conn in the US the themes of belonging, religious identity, racial identity, and East versus West resurface in very satisfying ways over and over again. At a family funeral gathering he thinks, “Others stand in the foyer, regarding me slyly through gaps in their eyes. It is always this way --- I am the foreigner, the outsider. My children have adapted but I never will. I accept this. I am accustomed to head turns, exclusion. I take in the flowers and ushers and programs, the people. I greet and smile, I am friendly. But my estrangement is magnified. I am a ghost here, a shadow. I am not one of them.” Questioning his life in the US he thinks about his torturous dreams of his past, “Are they glimpses of hell, of some afterlife just beyond? My life spent without God, without religion, and perhaps this is my consequence, to greet suffering with inaction, chained and observant, a man sentenced to watch a child’s slow, painful death. Punishing. Equalizing. Such a prideful, vengeful God this would be, a God of retribution, not mercy. Do I think I deserve more? There is innocence, denial, faithlessness, blasphemy. The emptiness of happenstance, nothingness. These seeds I have sown.” He thinks about how all people desire absolution from the wrongs they have committed.Lest you think this book is all darkness and meditation, know that Ahmet Khan has a special relationship with a girl in his group, a girl with two colored eyes. During the war they become separated and he wakes up in a military hospital in London with no memory of who he is or where he came from. We accompany Emmett Conn on his mission to find out what happened to her. Mustian does a great job of setting this story within the context of a still very contentious period of history. The evil men do results not from their national origin but from their faulty natures as humans. The good that men do results from the resilience of the goodness of the human spirit. Mustian uses the imagery of the sterile modern life against the rough natural environment of Khan’s early years very well. As we follow the character through loops of dream state and current state the environment immediately sets the stage for where we are in Emmett’s mind. The pace of the writing is perfect – I found myself wanting to slow my reading to be able to savor the moment, to savor the words, yet couldn’t read fast enough to find out what happens to my new dear friend, Emmett Conn.There is an author’s note at the end of the book that clarifies Mustian’s interest in the Armenian forced exodus from Turkey. He is distantly Armenian himself and did the research necessary to be able to write about that time. He draws an interesting parallel between modern Turkey, which has made it a crime to mention the Armenian genocide, and Emmett Conn, who also rid himself of that part of his history by losing his memory of it. Mustian: “Remembering is living. Forgetting, as Ahmet Khans learns, has its costs. Decades on, even centuries on, our shared history remains vital, the connection, however tenuous, to some tribal sense of before. Time stretches and calms, but still we reach, for we belonged then. We want to know. Sometimes that knowledge is painful, or inconvenient, or even damning. But it is essential. It exposes us for what we have been, and can be.” Nicely done.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really loved how Mustian's main character is a 92 year old man. I mean come on-how many books have you read with a narrator that old?? I also love how it's all told in the present tense, as if you are right there with Emmett as he's making all these discoveries. Emmett is a very intriguing narrator. He is still a strong older man, yet he is almost submissive in his old age, like so many elderly people I see everyday at my grandmother's retirement home. Their children never visit, but they learn to not really care. Their children make them move into nursing homes, and instead of protesting, they figure "what good will arguing do??", and then they go along with whatever their kids or doctors want. I think Mustian captures perfectly the mindset of a lot of older people. (Of course I'm not elderly myself, but I spend a lot of time with older people, so this is based solely on my observations.)The events that Mustian (of Armenian descent himself) chooses to place this story around were another thing that I loved. The Armenian "genocide" (as many call it, though we never learn a thing about this horrific event in school) is a topic that has always fascinated me. As I just stated though, many schools (at leasts mine) don't teach about this event. I learned about it years ago through a song by a really awesome band who's lead singer's family is from Armenia. I don't know any other fiction books that use this very real event as a backdrop. Mustian did this all perfectly, and he also awakened in my history buff brain a hunger for more information on what happened in Turkey just before and during The Great War. I highly recommend you read this book. It is extremely well written and different from so many other books I've read.