About the Book

Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin

Genre: Magical Realism, Dystopian Fiction

Release Date: June 28, 2022

Book Review

What does it mean to be a mother? This is the question at the core of Alexis Schaitkin’s new novel. This is written in a very different genre than Saint X, showcasing Schaitkin’s range. Personally, I liked this one even better!

“The clouds held her, as they held all our gone mothers, and at night when we opened our shutters and invited the clouds in, they would enter us: memories we could not tough, a feeling we could not name.”

This speculative novel is part fable, part philosophical fantasy. It requires the reader to set aside their judgements and follow the characters into their peculiar world.

Vera lives in an isolated town with a peculiar affliction: mothers regularly disappear, leaving all their belongings behind. No one knows why, so they simply accept it and carry on with their traditions and rituals. For the residents of this town, their home is the only thing that exists, and all other places are referred to as “Elsewhere.” In fact, they don’t want to know anything about Elsewhere.

Vera’s own mother disappears, and Vera never plans to marry and have a family. But then she meets Peter, and they fall in love. When Vera’s daughter is born, she’s unsettled, because now she could disappear, but she also celebrates becoming more fully herself.

But the sense of danger looms. When a mother disappears, the town gathers and burns all photos of her and all her belongings and analyzes all of her past interactions for the signs that she was flawed in some way, that her disappearance was to be expected. Maybe she loved her children too much or too little. This book tackles the question of how a mother’s love is perceived and critiqued by others.

“Impossible to predict, what motherhood would bring out of a woman, what it would show her about herself, the end to which it would carry her.”

When Vera begins to feel herself disappear, she has to decide: will she let it happen or do something about it?

This is a book that will leave you thinking about it for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.