Giray Kemer

The Events Began to Unfold After the Boxer Ate the Chard Wraps

​

Recently my boxing career had been limited to spats at bars anyway. I would somehow find a way to start an argument with the most crowded table in my vicinity, and swing my fists indiscriminately at everyone until security interviewed and I got kicked out.

 

That day was different. I was alone on the pier. A long time had passed since the breakup in the cemetery. Nothing had changed. I still wanted to die. No one had yet beaten me up badly enough.

​

Giray Kemer’s short story cycle, The Events Began to Unfold After the Boxer Ate the Chard Wraps, tells the stories of the beaten, not those who hand out the beatings. These stories aren’t filled with surprise endings, dramatic finales, or volatile scenes. Rather, the entire book exudes a heavy sense of defeat. We listen to young men who live in dirty flats and airless rooms, who talk about women after football practice or workouts, who pretend that nothing is wrong even as they bandage each other’s wounds, and who act like the world isn’t a terrible place. We witness lives in which everyone wants to be special and unique, but no one can succeed. 

 

Giray Kemer tells stories of the zeitgeist. With its rhythm, texture, and gradually darkening melancholy, the book is reminiscent of a bare-knuckle boxing game. Without lofty phrases, sometimes escapist and sometimes confrontational, artless and gentle… A firefly flickers. 

​

  

​