Mooncrankers Gift
by By Unsworth, Barry
Category: Fiction , Literary

Farnaby, a young Englishman in Istanbul  researching a thesis on Ottoman fiscal policy,  is nervous at his reunion with the celebrated  Mooncranker who once so fatefully influenced and disturbed his life. Mooncranker, a famous  intellectual, is now a pitiful alcoholic  deserted by his secretary and lover Miranda—the  woman Farnaby secretly loved with the violence  of youth. Mooncranker sends him to find Miranda  at a notorious Turkish spa on the grounds of an  ancient city where sex is known to come along  with the price of the room. There Farnaby tries  to understand Mooncranker's gift to him as a  boy of thirteen, which has tainted his life ever since, as he finds himself a pivotal figure in  the eccentric destinies of the other residents  of the spa.