Book Review: The Gendarme By Mark T. Mustian

by Cos Barnes

The definition of a gendarme is one of a corps of armed police, which Ahmet Khan was during World War I when he fought for the Ottomans. He was injured during the war and lost much of his memory. Now at 92, he is beginning to remember some of the things that happened, especially the forced march of Armenian women and children out of Turkey in 1915. Mustian’s heritage is Armenian, and he does not spare the details of the inhumanities suffered by these women and children. They were raped, starved, beaten, denied water and oftentimes left for dead. They suffered indignities we cannot imagine.

Mustian weaves a gruesome tale, yet makes his protagonist humane in his respect for these suffering people and in his attraction to Araxie and his dedication to protecting her. In his writing, he switches from past to present, depicting the gendarme of the early years to the 92-year-old Emmett Conn, a Turkish immigrant to the United States whose wife and nurse, Carol, indoctrinates him into American customs. Conn adapts to life in the U.S., fathers two children, makes his mistakes in rearing them, works hard as a builder and plumber, remembering little of his former life until dreams and illness bring them all back. Then we realize the book is a love story as well as a novel about genocide, war, cruelty and death.

Mustian’s vocabulary is precise and perfect in not only describing what the young Ahmet Khan endured but also what Emmett Conn faced in his later years in hospitals and mental health facilities. Read the book. It is engrossing.