This and it's sort-of sequel, Traveling Sprinkler, are among my favorites of the last few years.
Not one of my favorite Unsworth novels, but anything by him is worth a read. Begins dark, and follows with a long interlude of dark humor, populated by a series of bizarre characters who float through with almost no purpose, and ends on a dark note again. There isn't a single admirable character in the novel, although it's easy enough to empathize with a number of them. There are basically three extended set-pieces in the book, one in the boyhood of the main character, when he receives the "gift" of the title, and two in late 1960's Istanbul.
Plotless in the sense that a family saga has its own, organic plot, this follows the Langdons from the previous two novels in the trilogy, and I found myself referring frequently to the family tree at the beginning of the book to figure out who was who. As with the previous books, each chapter denotes a year. The story(ies) become increasingly sad, post 2000, and turns distinctly dystopian in the final chapters, which take us a mere 3 years past today. It's an unsettling and disheartening end, but almost entirely believable, although it may more accurately represent what we'll be seeing in 2030.