The Rug Dealer is a candid memoir of desire, reinvention, and self-deception, tracing your lifelong fascination with a charismatic Turkish rug dealer from a teenage romance in 1980s Konya to the consequences of the choices that followed. What was the inspiration for you to share your story with readers? 

When I started writing The Rug Dealer, I believed I was telling a simple coming-of-age story. I didn’t realize the extent to which I was still consumed by the fixation I had on Mehmet and his country. I thought I’d let it go years earlier, but I was so wrong.

As I wrote I was, in a sense, reliving my experience, and my fascination and fantasies were reactivated.  

By the time I got to the final chapters I was able to process many unresolved feelings and let go of my fixation, mostly.

Was there anything you discovered about your past while researching or reconstructing the story?

Yes, I discovered how fearless and frightfully naïve I’d been.

What does your memoir suggest about the stories we create around the people we desire?

I hope it suggests that we can be blind to reality when we’re smitten.

If you could speak to the teenage Martha who first met Mehmet, what would you tell her? 

I’d tell her to listen to her heart, follow her dreams and go for it.

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