Observations about “Supermarket” part one: how I came across the book

I’m in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, with my dad and my sister. There’s this 4-story D&R which we always visit whenever we go to Ankara. Although I live in Istanbul, we often go to Ankara because it’s where my grandmother lives, where my grandfather’s grave is, and where my cousins sometimes also visit when they’re not away in some remote corner of the world because of my uncle’s job as a diplomat. Istanbul, sometimes called the capital of the world due to its central geographical location in the world as well as the fact that it connects Asia and Europe together as well as the fact that it’s so different from the rest of Turkey. This is why sometimes people get confused when I tell them I visited Ankara for the weekend. Although Ankara is still a relatively more modern city in Turkey, unlike some cities or villages where people still have child marriages and normalization of incest and dowries, they look at me with an expression in their face as if to say “We, Istanbullular (the people of Istanbul), are too good to visit such other cities in Turkey. We isolate ourselves from the fact that we live in Turkey. For all we know, we live in Europe and the rest of Turkey lives in Asia. We don’t visit Ankara, we visit London, or Tokyo, or NYC.”

I was wearing black leggings that are so worn-out they almost look navy, and an oversized grey sweatshirt with a white t-shirt underneath. I have my black Nike’s on, which I usually never wear because they’re not fashionable. But I don’t have anybody who’s going to judge me for wearing black Nike’s in Ankara, and plus I have to walk a lot, so I’m wearing them. I’m browsing through the “Best-Sellers” section when I come across a book that looks different from all the others. The cover page is made out of a different material, and unlike all the other books, this book’s entire cover page is covered red with “SUPERMARKET” written with yellow on it. No descriptions, no illustrations, no anything. I remember coming across this book in a D&R in Istanbul, but not buying it because I had too much to read at the time, and plus it seemed expensive. But because I’ve come all the way from Istanbul to Ankara into this huge D&R, I feel obliged to have a memento, a souvenir. So I judge a book by its cover. Without thinking much about it, I put it into my cart with “Normal People” by Sally Rooney, which I’m embarrassed to admit I still haven’t read, and “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah which I only bought because I read somewhere it was similar to “Where the Crawdads Sing”.

So that was the journey of how I came about “Supermarket” by Bobby Hall.

I don’t usually “dislike” books, even when I don’t particularly enjoy them, I consider that to be a contribution towards my general understanding of writing styles as well as adding another piece of story into the folder of my brain that contains the novels I read and the stories I hear. As much as I don’t dislike books, I don’t usually write reviews about them. But this book was so different, I can’t even categorize it as “like” or “don’t like”. So that’s why I’m writing about it. Additionally, I accidentally read the Goodreads reviews for this book, which I try not to do because those opinions bias me. And the reviews I read were mostly negative, talking about how “The book tried so hard to be great that it forgot to be good.” and stuff. So at first, it biased me to dislike the book, really. I couldn’t get into it. But I went out of town where there weren’t many opportunities for me to do anything but read, and so I began to read it again. And the plot twist got me sucked into it. I finished the remaining 150 pages or so in a day.