Elsewhere
A Novel
-
-
3.6 • 9 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Richly emotive and darkly captivating, with elements of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and the imaginative depth of Margaret Atwood, Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin conjures a community in which girls become wives, wives become mothers and some of them, quite simply, disappear.
Vera grows up in a small town, removed and isolated, pressed up against the mountains, cloud-covered and damp year-round. This town, fiercely protective, brutal and unforgiving in its adherence to tradition, faces a singular affliction: some mothers vanish, disappearing into the clouds. It is the exquisite pain and intrinsic beauty of their lives; it sets them apart from people elsewhere and gives them meaning.
Vera, a young girl when her mother went, is on the cusp of adulthood herself. As her peers begin to marry and become mothers, they speculate about who might be the first to go, each wondering about her own fate. Reveling in their gossip, they witness each other in motherhood, waiting for signs: this one devotes herself to her child too much, this one not enough—that must surely draw the affliction’s gaze. When motherhood comes for Vera, she is faced with the question: will she be able to stay and mother her beloved child, or will she disappear?
Provocative and hypnotic, Alexis Schaitkin’s Elsewhere is at once a spellbinding revelation and a rumination on the mysterious task of motherhood and all the ways in which a woman can lose herself to it; the self-monitoring and judgment, the doubts and unknowns, and the legacy she leaves behind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schaitkin (Saint X) returns with the profound story of a remote mountain village defined by the routine disappearances of mothers. Vera, 16, helps her widower father run the town's photoshop. As she and her peers traverse the thorny path of adolescence, they're all too aware of the possible fate waiting for them that plagued their mothers, all of whom vanished when they were little girls for no clear or consistent reason (whenever a mother disappears, others assume it was due to her overprotectiveness, neglect, or some other parental sin). Then a stranger named Ruth visits from "elsewhere," and her presence in town makes the residents both prideful and self-conscious about their lives. Before they force Ruth to leave, she plants a seed in young Vera's mind: "You could leave this place." Several years later, Vera becomes a mother, and Ruth's words resonate with her as she becomes increasingly attached to her daughter and realizes she may be on the verge of disappearing. A surprising and poignant development later prompts her to reflect that "You do not get to keep what is sweetest to you; you only get to remember it from the vantage point of having lost it." Schaitkin gives the goings-on great substance by digging into the complicated feelings brought on by motherhood and the judgments from others, all the while delineating the mothers' utter joy, frustrations, and love for their children. This is a standout.
