Har Mar: Stories

Journeying through the emotional migrations of women living in the in-between

"It's been a long time since I've read a collection of stories as honest, true, and wise as this one. I finished the stories of Har Mar feeling a lot less lonesome in the world. I loved this book." --Vauhini Vara, author of This Is Salvaged: Stories

In Hilal Isler's gripping debut story collection, Har Mar, women in the early twenty-first century navigate the complex spaces between countries, families, languages, and selves. Isler's characters are all on the verge of something--success, rebellion, revelation--and they want to disappear as much as they want to be seen. Moving back and forth between Turkey and the United States, these stories trace migrations both physical and emotional: a nanny plots to flee the wealthy family she cares for in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul; in Har Mar, a quiet mall tucked in the suburbs of Minneapolis, a bookseller escapes her grief in a complicated relationship with a wig retailer; an actress is hired by a famous American novelist to portray her at public events.

The women in Har Mar don't always make sound decisions, and they're not trying to be heroes. But they are reaching--imperfectly, but fiercely--for connection, truth, and home. With moving prose and a deep sense of longing, this collection explores what it means to grow up in the margins, to live in translation, and to build a life at the edge of belonging.

Table of Contents:

Khadijah Number Two
Arzum
Kings
Mister Morning Barista
Farhana, Please
Scorpion
Honey
Har Mar
The Lambs
The Honeymooner
The Keys
Nothing for Something
A Rare and Wonderful Man
The American Way
Power Couple
Scattered Chances
Acknowledgements

Hilal Isler teaches at the University of Texas. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney's, New York Magazine, The Believer, The Baltimore Review, The Paris Review online, and elsewhere. She is a 2023 McKnight Fellow in Creative Prose and lives with her family in Austin.