Evil Eyes Sea is preoccupied with objects: how they become imbued with their owners' lives and remain after those people are gone. In her autobiographically-inspired graphic novel, Özge Samancı skillfully intersperses her drawings with mixed media objects—especially evil eyes—in a compelling examination of what it means to be a woman in Turkey’s male-centric culture.
Samancı's stand-in is Ece, a student at Bosphorus University. The women live together in cramped dorms with no hot water or refrigerators, making the best of limited funds. Ece’s friend, Meltem, encounters unwanted attention for her beauty, while Ece takes pride in her Medusa-like curls and has a penchant for risk-taking. Early on, a striking illustration sees Ece lying in the dorm, with an evil eye in place of her head. She cannot fall asleep and we soon learn
the reason why.
An evil eye wards against a malevolent gaze and its size correlates to the space or person it protects. A baby would have a very small one, for example. In one memory, Ece and Meltem visit the Basilica Cirsten and make a wish to gain the “evil eye” or “Medusa gaze,” with which they attempt to right the various injustices they encounter. Samancı suggests this stare is one of the few methods women have to push back against a society that silences, exploits, or seeks to own them.
The other part of Samancı's title, the sea, is a potent metaphorical space. Even though the water is “owned by men,” it begins as a site of freedom for the scuba-diving friends. When they witness a car plunging into the sea, with a woman still inside, the water becomes a place of terror and discovery. Their failure to save this woman haunts Ece and Meltem—the “sea” allows them to “see” what was previously hidden about the dark underbelly of Turkish politics. The novel, which begins as a patchwork of memories, then turns into a surprisingly gripping heist narrative complete with dead bodies, criminals, and a high-stakes treasure hunt.
Like the ocean itself, Samancı's writing floats over a world of nuances. She writes: “Meltem and I found a dead body. Her name was Selen.” This quote delicately parses the line between a lifeless object and its former personhood. Selen’s death, and her remaining possessions, unlock Turkey’s political corruption, but also its more insidious treatment of women as disposable objects. The sharp observations on Turkish culture are matched by highly metaphorical imagery and vivid characters. Ece boldly drives the narrative, pushing her friend to uncover the mystery of the woman’s death, even as the moral waters become increasingly murky for both of them. Samancı smartly chooses to peel back the layers of her main character throughout the novel, allowing us to speculate on Ece’s motivations until the very end.
Evil Eyes Sea is a work that turns its powerful, Medusa-like gaze on womanhood, corruption, and moral responsibility while still being an entertaining, fast-paced read. Taking the plunge into its watery depths is a rewarding experience.
Evil Eyes Sea is available at most bookstores and through the Uncivilized Books website.