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 own 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.

Praise for Elsewhere

“Impossible to put down until the devastating last page, Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin is a haunting, richly imagined examination of what it means to be a mother and to belong to someone and somewhere. In shimmering prose, Schaitkin brilliantly uses the conventions of speculative fiction to evoke a surreal world where motherhood is both the pinnacle of achievement and the thing most feared…Through the trope of motherhood, Elsewhere reveals with disturbing accuracy how a community shapes itself and how it closes ranks against ‘the other.’” —Carol Shields Prize Jurors' Citation

"'Elsewhere,' joins the recent roster of impressive novels that have employed speculative elements to examine new motherhood...Schaitkin’s pace is firmly controlled, her arcs built line by patient line… Without any signifiers of location and time, Schaitkin’s narrative seems to reach for a sense of universality, and intentionality: as though every element of this carefully crafted theater has been placed there for a reason...A welcome addition to a shelf of speculative fiction about the joys, failures and metamorphoses involved in having a child, “Elsewhere” asks: Is motherhood, like the town itself, meant to be a featureless place, best experienced under a haze of collective brainwashing?"—Marie-Hélène Bertino, New York Times book review

“Schaitkin writes trenchantly about what it means to mother, the hardships and self-doubt balanced with the beauty and love...This is a book best savored."—Associated Press

"Schaitkin skillfully calls into question the meaning of motherhood with all its attendant judgment, self-doubt and profound love."—Washington Post, Best Books of June

"Schaitkin (Saint X) returns with...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."―Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

"[S]imply stunning…The prose is as magical as the haunting world Schaitkin creates; the story is as captivating as the prose; the characters, the imagery—flawless…This novel is, at its core, a commentary and psychological exploration of motherhood, as readers follow Vera through parenting’s tender highs and most gut-wrenching, self-doubting lows…[A] magical, otherworldly story certain to be on plenty of 2022 'best of' lists."―Library Journal, STARRED Review

"Elaborately imagined, ethereally detailed...In a complete departure from her debut, Saint X (2020), Schaitkin’s sophomore novel is a fabulist narrative with Shirley Jackson overtones and Margaret Atwood themes."―Kirkus

"Schaitkin (Saint X, 2020) has written a compelling, poetic, and chilling novel that examines fate and fear."―Booklist, STARRED Review

"Schaitkin’s writing is transcendent. Elsewhere takes the visceral experience of motherhood―all its private joys, invisible fears, personal losses, and vague sensations of being judged―and turns it inside out, weaving each element into a dark fairy tale that is wise, gorgeous, and deeply moving."―Ali Benjamin, author of The Smash-Up

“Elsewhere is among my favorite novels of the last decade. There’s an eerie, gorgeous magic to Schaitkin’s vision that’s related to the magic of Kazuo Ishiguro and Shirley Jackson but also entirely her own. I hadn’t realized how much it would mean to me to witness an intelligence this fierce and singular, a capacity for feeling this deep, and a gift for language this extraordinary all trained on the subject of motherhood in all its wonder and strangeness.”―Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson