Excerpt from Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I grew up near Sivas," the driver continues. "What's your family name? Maybe I know it." There is no escaping this constant need for placing one another in Turkey. It's one of the few things Orhan loved about living in Germany: the anonymity. "Turkoglu," he says finally.

The driver's expression, framed in the rearview mirror, changes. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says. "Kemal Bey was an extraordinary man. Is it true he fought at Ctesiphon?"

Orhan nods, taking another drag from his cigarette.

"They don't make them like that anymore. That generation was full of real men. They fought against all of Europe and Russia, established a Republic and founded entire industries. It's something, huh?"

"Yes," agrees Orhan. "It's something."

"The paper says he immersed himself in dye for medicinal purposes," the driver says.

It's not the first time Orhan has heard this preposterous theory. It's a story crafted, no doubt, by his cunning little aunt. Though Dede had been a well-respected World War One hero-turned-businessman, he was also an eccentric man, living in a place where eccentricities needed to be explained away or covered up.

In villages like Karod, every person, object, and stone has to have some sort of covering, a layer of protection made from cloth, brick or dust. Men and women cover their heads with skullcaps and headscarves. These standards of modesty also apply to their animals, their speech, their ideas. Why should Dede's death be an exception?

The car veers left onto a loosely graveled road that leads into the village. Orhan searches for the wooden post that used to announce the village's name in unassuming hand-painted white letters, but it's nowhere to be found. A young boy in a bright orange shirt and green shorts walks behind a herd of cows. He sweeps a long stick at their backs, ushering them into one of many narrow corridors sandwiched between mud-caked houses.

"Is this it?" asks the driver.

"Yes," says Orhan. "Just follow this road until you see the house with the large columns."

The sound of crunching gravel comes to a halt as the car stops. Orhan extinguishes his cigarette and steps out. He can hear the singular sound of hired wailers, their practiced percussion luring him out of the car: two, maybe three female voices filled with a kind of sorrow and vulnerability that comes only with practice. The two-story family home is a dilapidated old ruin by any standards, but here in the forgotten back pocket of Central Anatolia, it is considered a sturdy and grand affair. A thin film of mustard colored stucco advances and retreats over hand cut stones of putty and grey, reminding Orhan of a half-peeled piece of dried out fruit. The Victorian looking house, complete with parlor and basement, is the birthplace of Tarik Inc, which began as a small collection of workshops and which, over the past six decades grew into an automated firm, exporting textiles as far away as Italy and Germany. Here, inside these ruinous walls, according to family legend, Orhan's great-grandfather had woven a kilim for the Sultan himself. That was before the Empire became a republic, before democracy and westernization revolutionized what it meant to be a Turk. In the courtyard to the left of the house, the massive copper cauldrons stand guarding the wilting structure. Through the decades they've gone from holding fabric dye to sheltering children playing hide and seek, to storing the discarded ashes of hookah pipes and cigarettes. These vessels have contained the many bits and pieces of Dede's life. Perhaps it is only fitting that they also housed his last breath.

Orhan weaves a familiar path around the cauldrons. All empty, except one which holds a murky sledge like dye that looks more black than blue, the color of a goodbye.

Excerpted from Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian. Copyright © 2015 by Aline Ohanesian. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.