Elsewhere

Zevin, Gabrielle. Elsewhere. New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Somehow Elizabeth Hall (also known as Liz or Lizzie), has woken up on a cruise ship with a stranger for a roommate. The ship is headed for Elsewhere, but all Liz wants to do is go home. It takes her a little while (and some revelations by her shipmates) to understand that she is dead, not just dreaming, and cannot go back home. Once she arrives on Elsewhere, she is met by her grandmother who passed away before Liz was even born and is sent to orientation to get to know her new home. Everyone on Elsewhere ages backward from the age they died, then when they are 7 days old they get sent back to Earth. Liz cannot believe her luck; just shy of 16, she will never get to drive, fall in love, go to prom, go to college or do anything else. Initially, Liz refuses to acclimate to her new situation, preferring to watch what her family on Earth is doing and rejecting the tenets of Elsewhere. After an attempt to contact her brother on Earth, which is forbidden in Elsewhere, Liz realizes that she needs to make an effort to create a life in her new home. She finds a job working with animals, giving them an orientation to their new lives, like the one she had, connects deeply with her grandmother and even finds love. Liz learns that a life is a life, no matter where you live.

By beginning the story in the world of the living, Zevin communicates with the reader one of the basic and most important elements of fantasy works: the reader is going to follow the main character on a journey beyond this world. How Zevin accomplishes this what is worth note, as she talks about the death of Liz through the eyes of her Earthly canine companion. Lucy, the dog, sets the tale that the reader is about to enter, in a fun and original way. Just that brief interlude provides the necessary and critical transition between the actual world and the world of Elsewhere. The plot points within the book so vital to the success of the work are inventive and afford the author to create essential growth in Liz, making her likeable and further emphasizing the theme. Liz, hesitant to embrace or commit to her new life, begins to understand and realize that there is a cycle to life and she is cycling through, just like everyone else. Whereas before she laments that she’ll “never go to college or get married…or live on my own or fall in love or get my driver’s license”, Liz comes to recognize that “there will be other lives.” This maturing of her character, deepening of her self-awareness through coming to grips with her death, allows her character to be understood, liked and well-received by the reader.

Zevin takes the topic of the afterworld and creates a setting that has its foundation within the actual world. In doing this, Zevin gives the reader a frame of reference in regard to what Liz’s world may actually look like. To readers that are uncertain or disinterested in this genre, having mystical elements grounded in reality may be more appealing. In Booklist, Jennifer Mattson also notes that “the setting is an elaborately conceived afterlife called Elsewhere, a distinctly secular island realm of surprising physical solidity (no cottony clouds or pearly gates here).” By scattering some magical elements throughout the story, like the ability to use binoculars to view Earth or speaking to animals, Zevin skillfully reminds where the story is taking place, but does so not to overwhelm the reader with that fact.

Book jacket found on: http://www.iowa-city.k12.ia.us/schools/city/LMC/CityReads/BookGroup/BookGr.htm