What does a twenty-something do when he doesn't want to build a career in his father's company in faraway Düsseldorf, Germany? He writes an alternative travel guide about his favorite places in Istanbul: cafés, fringe theaters, clubs, and bookstores. The publishing contract is signed, a large print run, translations into several languages. But the city is changing, construction machinery is moving in, shops are closing, and a layer of concrete dust and noise hangs over everything. The book project crumbles, along with the existence of its author. He no longer recognizes his voice, his face is different, and his girlfriend is worried. And then there's the insomnia that paralyzes and makes him anxious. He struggles to hold his life together with lists of song lyrics, film noir titles, and lists of disappearing places. The crack in his phone screen grows larger, as do the cracks in the walls of his apartment. Then his beloved cat dies, and in the concrete city, there is no patch of earth for a grave. At that point, the twenty-something decides to disappear from his life to escape the insomnia and his alien existence. One could call Hakan Bıçakcı's novel Kafkaesque, and Istanbul is also Kafkaesque—caught between silent and overt repression, with pits beneath smooth surfaces, and signs on the wall.