Each chapter is told by a different character in the story. Involved in the story are Fatma, the grandmother; her three grandchildren, Faruk, Nilgun, and Metin; her husband's illegitimate son, Recep, who is her caregiver; and Hasan, her husband's illegitimate grandson. Very present in the story are Fatma's dead husband and son.
This is a very different book with an entire page being one sentence because the sentence is a thought in a person's head. Threaded throughout the book are the complexities of human relationships, especially in families, politics in the setting of 1980's Turkey, alcoholism, unstable mental conditions, religion, and young people struggling to find their place in their world.
The story has a strange ending. Why is the house silent is what you are left to wonder.