"Saint of Incipient Insanities" Turkish novelist Elif Shafak's novel.
Shafak tells a comic and heartbreaking story of a group of twentysomething friends and their never-ending quest for fulfillment, presenting a vibrant exploration of love, friendship, culture, nationality, exile, and belonging. "The Saint of Incipient Insanities is the story of a group of friends and their never-ending quest for happiness and fulfillment." "Omer, Abed and Piyu are roommates, foreigners all recently arrived in the United States. Omer is a Ph.D. student in political science from Istanbul who adapts quickly to his new home and falls in love with the bisexual, intellectual chocolate maker Gail. Gail is American yet feels utterly displaced in her homeland and moves from one obsession to another in an effort to find solid ground. Abed pursues a degree in biotechnology and worries about Omer's unruly ways, his mother's unexpected visit, and stereotypes of Arabs in America as he struggles to maintain a connection with his girlfriend back home in Morocco. Piyu is Spanish, studying to be a dentist in spite of his fear of sharp objects, and is baffled by the many relatives of his anorexic Mexican-American girlfriend, Alegre - and in many ways by Alegre herself." As time passes, their relationships with each other change and challenge these mismatched friends' preconceptions of themselves, their countries, and their adopted homeland.