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Elsewhere: A memoir Kindle Edition

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 879 ratings

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls turns to memoir in this "intimate and powerful" account (Chicago Tribune) of his lifelong bond with his high-strung, spirited mother—and the small town she spent her life trying to escape. 

Anyone familiar with Russo’s novels will recognize Gloversville—once famous for producing nine out of ten dress gloves in the United States. By the time Rick was born, ladies had stopped wearing gloves and Gloversville was on its way out. Jean Russo instilled in her son her dream of a better life elsewhere, a dream that prompted her to follow him across the country when he went to college. Their adventures and tribulations on that road trip were a preview of the hold his mother would continue to have on him as she kept trying desperately to change her life. Recounted with a clear-eyed mix of regret, nostalgia, and love,
Elsewhere is a stirring tribute to the tenacious grip of the past.

Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Russo brings the same clear-eyed humanism that marks his fiction to this by turns funny and moving portrait of his high-strung mother and her never-ending quest to escape the provincial confines of their hometown of Gloversville, New York. All of her life, she clung to the notion that she was an independent woman, despite the fact that she couldn’t drive, lived upstairs from her parents, and readily accepted their money to keep her household afloat. She finally escaped her deteriorating hometown, which went bust when the local tannery shut down, by moving to Arizona with her 18-year-old son when he left for college and following him across the country right up until her death. His comical litany of her long list of anxieties, from the smell of cooking oil to her fruitless quest for the perfect apartment, is a testament to his forbearance but also to his ability to make her such a vivid presence in these pages. Part of what makes this such a profound tribute to her is precisely because he sees her so clearly, flaws and all. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Prizewinning author Richard Russo’s many fans will be lining up for his first nonfiction work, which has generated considerable prepublication buzz. --Joanne Wilkinson

Review

“It’s rare for a novelist to write candidly about the real behind the imagined. About a lifetime of work and the very person who inspired it. Yet that is precisely what Richard Russo has done in his memoir.... Redemption is always the prize in a Russo story. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Elsewhere, a brave little book in which a writer spins deprivation into advantage, suffering into wisdom, and a broken mother into a muse. Wanting him to be anywhere but Gloversville, Jean Russo did everything she could to make her son leave. And then, unable to feel whole anywhere outside it, she eventually brought him home.” —Marie Arana, The Washington Post
 
“Intimate and powerful...an impeccably told tale.” —Julia M. Klein,
Chicago Tribune

“A gorgeously nuanced memoir about Russo’s mother and his own lifelong tour of duty spent—lovingly and exhaustedly—looking out for her. . . . Russo is the Bruce Springsteen of novelists . . . in a paragraph or even a phrase, he can summon up a whole world, and the world he writes most poignantly about is that of the industrial white working class.” —Maureen Corrigan,
Fresh Air
 
“Filled with insights, by turn tender and tough, about human fidelity, frailty, forbearance, and fortitude.” —Glenn C. Altschuler,
The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Moving and darkly funny. . . Russo mines grace from his gritty hometown [and] the greatest charm of this memoir lies in the absences of self-pity and pretension in his take on his own history.” —Amy Finnerty,
The Wall Street Journal
 
“Heartfelt and generous.” —Tricia Springstubb,
Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“One of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years... Russo's straightforward writing style is even more effective in
Elsewhere [and his] intellectual and emotional honesty are remarkable.” —Michael Schaub, NPR.org
 
“Rich and layered... an honest book about a universal subject: those familial bonds that only get trickier with time.” —Kevin Canfield,
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Russo conjures the incredible bond between single mother and only child in a way that makes his story particularly powerful.” —Nicholas Mancusi, The Daily Beast
 
“Russo brings the same clear-eyed humanism that marks his fiction to this by turns funny and moving portrait of his mother and her never-ending quest to escape the provincial confines of their hometown.” —Joanne Wilkinson,
Booklist
 
“An affecting yet never saccharine glimpse of the relationship among place, family and fiction.” —
Kirkus

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0084U4KR2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage (October 30, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 30, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1251 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 879 ratings

About the author

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Richard Russo
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Rick Russo is the author of six previous novels and THE WHORE'S CHILD, a collection of stories. In 2002, he received the Pulitzer Prize for EMPIRE FALLS. He lives with his wife in Camden, Maine, and Boston.

Photo credit Elena Seibert

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
879 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the memoir engaging and well-written. They appreciate the author's skill in describing family dynamics and the intricate narrative style. The book is described as heartwarming, compassionate, and loving. Readers appreciate the author's attention to psychological detail and profound insight into people's motivations. They also appreciate the humor and character development.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

86 customers mention "Readability"70 positive16 negative

Customers find the book readable and engaging. They describe it as an interesting memoir that reads like a novel. Readers enjoy learning about the author's area. The story is described as candid, honest, and generous.

"...This is a fine and possibly great literary memoir." Read more

"...This memoir was excellent, candid, very readable - and oh so sad, about his mother and her unfulfilled life...." Read more

"...He has the best line in the book,to Richard at age 21, "son, you know your mother is crazy." Incredibly, Richard didn't know...." Read more

"...I thoroughly enjoyed the book." Read more

77 customers mention "Writing quality"71 positive6 negative

Customers find the writing quality remarkable and engaging. They appreciate the author's style and compassion for describing family life. The book is easy to read, honest, and sensitive. Readers praise the impressive structure and consider it more than just a memoir.

"...It takes remarkable writing to incite this passion in me and Richard Russo is one of the few writers alive (if not in history) capable to excite me..." Read more

"Smoothly written, interestingly structured, a complex portrait of mental illness, love, and lower middle class life in a wretched town, Elsewhere is..." Read more

"...I still don;t know quite what to say. The writing is wonderful, as expected, and the subject matter is just what he says it will be -- the story..." Read more

"Russo is such a beautiful writer that he can make practically any topic magical and compelling...." Read more

60 customers mention "Narrative style"57 positive3 negative

Customers find the memoir engaging with its complex narrative. They appreciate the author's storytelling abilities and the poignant journey through a son and mother's growth. The memoir is described as a good read by Richard Russo, one of their favorite authors.

"...So that it is not a memoir after all, since the entire story is true but it's meant to have a direct point, like a novel, and a plot that develops..." Read more

"...Elsewhere does have a surprising narrative pull...." Read more

"...This memoir was excellent, candid, very readable - and oh so sad, about his mother and her unfulfilled life...." Read more

"...the subject matter is just what he says it will be -- the story about his intricate, demanding, troubled, lovely, maddening, relationship with his..." Read more

37 customers mention "Heartwarming"34 positive3 negative

Customers find the book heartwarming and relatable. They describe it as compassionate, touching, and thoughtful. The complicated relationship is described as loving yet truthful.

"...interestingly structured, a complex portrait of mental illness, love, and lower middle class life in a wretched town, Elsewhere is a book I'd..." Read more

"...This memoir was excellent, candid, very readable - and oh so sad, about his mother and her unfulfilled life...." Read more

"...his sensibility and point of view, confident, masculine, and full of humanity and kindness too." Read more

"This book is do sad and yet a beautiful, loving tribute from an only son trying to del with a valiant but desperately ill mother, one gripped by..." Read more

36 customers mention "Insight"30 positive6 negative

Customers appreciate the author's attention to psychological detail and insights into mental health issues. They find the book insightful, kind, and moving. The author provides good insight into people's motivations, whether rational or not. Readers appreciate his sensitivity, understanding, and honest writing style.

"Smoothly written, interestingly structured, a complex portrait of mental illness, love, and lower middle class life in a wretched town, Elsewhere is..." Read more

"...This memoir was excellent, candid, very readable - and oh so sad, about his mother and her unfulfilled life...." Read more

"...I like Russo's voice, his sensibility and point of view, confident, masculine, and full of humanity and kindness too." Read more

"...Perhaps he was calling in her spirit and attention to psychological detail. He mentions "Du Lac"- a novel about isolation and loneliness...." Read more

20 customers mention "Humor"20 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the author's humor and character development in this memoir. They find it engaging and humorous when appropriate. Readers praise the author's writing style as authentic and entertaining.

"...occasion of the release of "That Old Cape Magic" and he's delightful, witty and pretty darn humorous...." Read more

"...First, it made me laugh out loud in parts, which was great. But also, the complex relationship we have with our parents is captured so well...." Read more

"...This is funny writing but I really got the sense of how desperately the son needed to keep his mother from chaos and despair...." Read more

"...Especially his mother. But it is written with the same humor and character development as all of his previous novels. I highly recommend." Read more

12 customers mention "Character development"12 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the characters' development. They appreciate the author's unique humor and find Richard Russo a talented man with a bizarre mother. The son is devoted and makes a wonderful husband and father despite his childhood.

"...Russo's native town to which we all connect but his ability to honestly depict characters, even himself...." Read more

"...But it is written with the same humor and character development as all of his previous novels. I highly recommend." Read more

"...His books are completely character driven...." Read more

"...I came away feeling that he was a very devoted son that understood how much his mother needed him...." Read more

20 customers mention "Pacing"9 positive11 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it moving and engaging, taking them on an emotional journey down memory lane. Others feel the book gets repetitive and boring at times.

"...This book is compulsive. More so than any book I've read in the past seven years...." Read more

"...Beautifully written. Moving...." Read more

"...the book IS written with love, devotion and intensity but it is utterly frustrating & ultimately unsatisfying." Read more

"...of Russo's fictional works, as well as being a virtual tour of my childhood 50 years removed." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013
    I've "known" Richard Russo my entire life, not just since 1993 when I read his first three books in trade paperback in fast order: OneTwoThree. They were gifted to me by my Aunt Alain for the same reason that she gifted so much Edward Albee: It was a way to return to my own home. My family has owned a vast farm in one of those small, worn, Central New York Towns since 1836. It is about an hour or so west of the town in which Russo grew up. The house on the farm was built during the towns high point and though our town did not proper as a mill town, it prospered all the same. Small and comfortable at the foot of one of the Finger Lakes (the smallest lake and the smallest town) my hometown was a spiritual center during the 19th century and like most of New York State after the First World War it began to disintegrate. The family dairy farms sustained it for much of the 20th century but today these have been replaced by vast corporate farms where the animals are not named and treated well and no one bothers keeping barn cats to control mice (let alone naming them) and those wooden barns are melting into the ground like a dropped scoop of ice cream in summer. Every road looks like this and every town looks like this. Aunt Alain gave me "Mohawk", "the Risk Pool" and "Nobody's Fool" in one pile and said to me, "This man has captured the honest essence of New York State. Not just the physical grayness of one of its winters and the chipped paint of houses with sagging clothes lines and rusty American made pickup trucks, but the people themselves, flannel shirts with jeans and lifelong, low paying jobs. No one in these towns really has a career and from the outside no one seems to have purpose to his life. There are more mobile homes than houses with basements and there are as many bars as churches."

    So I read these books and indeed, Alain had been right. Even had I not grown up in this tiny town at the foot of Owasco Lake, there was a magic to Russo's writing that made these towns feel real to anyone or everyone. Like the books I mentioned and the subsequent "Straight Man," "Empire Falls" (Kudos for the Pulitzer Prize and the brilliant HBO film) "The Bridge of Sighs" "That Old Cape Cod Magic" and his collection of short stories "The Whore's Child" Russo writes very much the way Stephen Sondheim composes. Every single piece is different and the voice is created to best tell the story b8ut when you step back and look at the piece as a whole, there is no question who wrote it. And indeed Richard Russo is as good a writer as Sondheim is a theatre composer.

    With that all in mind, I pounced upon "Elsewhere" the moment I knew it existed. Russo has subtitled it "A Memoir" and with the same gossipy curiosity that I hold for all my favorite writers I dove into the book. It's important that we all recognize the difference between a memoir and an autobiography. And autobiography is the self written story of one's life, generally wri9tten late enough in life for the entire story to be told. A Memoir is self written but about just a faction of the life or a particular element to one's life. With "Elsewhere" Richard Russo stretches this definition even farther.

    Many of Russo's books end with irony or with a surprise but are handled so well that we are carefully led there. "Elsewhere" is the exception, perhaps because real life, unlike fiction, is not intended to be an escape for people. One who reads novels is searching for an escape from his life and to some, me for example, books are as important as a narcotic to an addict. "Elsewhere" is subsequently very much like some of the novels or stories of Shirley Jackson. We read through this book and we are captivated almost at once. Within the first fifteen pages we begin to feel as though Russo is writing a biography of his mother. It remains this way as their lives proceed (Russo skillfully takes us through five decades in about two hundred pages and at no time do we feel cheated or rushed.) and then - just as most of Shirley Jackson's work - we are shocked to discover at the ending that he has been travelling two roads at once and the surprise ending, and indeed there is a surprise ending, perhaps not "The Lottery," but certainly as big as a memoir could produce, virtually takes the breath away. In some ways, at the very last moment "Elsewhere" becomes a traditional memoir. The meaning of the book and its title become apparent in one powerful page that we could never have guessed and indeed will never arise again.

    So that it is not a memoir after all, since the entire story is true but it's meant to have a direct point, like a novel, and a plot that develops and then reveals, like a novel, and the story stops because an author chooses to stop at that point, like a novel. Everything about "Elsewhere" is written as though it were fiction, another genius novel by Richard Russo. Because of the craft that all of this requires, coupled with the self examination of his own life and family, this is perhaps the most brilliant piece of writing that Richard Russo has ever published.

    That said, it is not just Russo's native town to which we all connect but his ability to honestly depict characters, even himself. He shows warts and all, as they say, but Russo justifies every quirk and, in the case of "Elsewhere" this justification is not at all easy. Not only does he write it but he makes us buy the premise and it's honest. He is able to explain the quirks in hisw characters the way that we wish we could explain ourselves.

    This book is compulsive. More so than any book I've read in the past seven years. Critics are always saying, "I couldn't put it down" but the truth is that this is rarely a pure fact. With "Elsewhere" I sincerely kept the book with me, read at the dining table, rudely in front of company, in the bathroom and in the car, forcing my seventy-seven year old mother to do the driving. ("Only about fifty pages to go," I'd say) I've completed it after an all-nighter and, because of my excitement over a piece of literature of this quality; I opened my lap top and started the first draft of this essay. It takes remarkable writing to incite this passion in me and Richard Russo is one of the few writers alive (if not in history) capable to excite me in this way. I strongly recommend everything Richard Russo has ever written but if you're going to read only one of his books, "Elsewhere" is the one to read.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2013
    Smoothly written, interestingly structured, a complex portrait of mental illness, love, and lower middle class life in a wretched town, Elsewhere is a book I'd recommend, with caveats, to adults. They must be serious readers, or blessed with at least one difficult parent, or love and hate their hometown, or be writers. Or be Richard Russo fans, of course.

    Russo tells the story very much from "now," as an adult looking back. We're in his head more than in the experience of his younger self who lived it. The first true scene doesn't appear until page twenty-five. The writer's stance in the present and his reliance on voice as much or more than on dramatized action have a distancing effect. This made the book less emotionally involving for me even as its appealing sadder-but-wiser narrator lured me onward.

    Elsewhere does have a surprising narrative pull. Somehow Russo generates suspense, probably because although we know from the start the book ends with his mother's death, we crave the story's particulars. The memoir becomes moving as Russo becomes more self-protective and then aware of it. Too late he realizes, or finally admits consciously, that his mother suffered from severe, undiagnosed mental illness her whole life.

    This is a fine and possibly great literary memoir.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2013
    I'll start by saying I'm a big fan of Russo's writing. I've heard him speak, on the occasion of the release of "That Old Cape Magic" and he's delightful, witty and pretty darn humorous.

    I read this book because - it was Russo; and - because like Russo,
    I'm an only child with so very much of my life defined by a strong
    willful mother.

    I might have thought my mother was clinging, or just seemed to need me so much - but after reading Russo's memoir - I have nothing to compare.

    This memoir was excellent, candid, very readable - and oh so sad, about his mother and her unfulfilled life. What I do wish I'd also gotten was a tale of how Russo
    and his wife managed to keep their balance - both individually -
    and as a couple with this extremely heavy burden. But the book was really about his mother - I'm hoping there'll be more about how he came through caring for her his entire life.

    Richard Russo is in my small pantheon of the VERY BEST writers today.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Anne007
    5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Russo - The Master
    Reviewed in Canada on October 25, 2013
    A wonderful memoir, a tableau created out of a real life. A very moving account with which I can totally empathize.
  • Alexander Bryce
    5.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE THE SAME BOOK DIFFERENT TITLE
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 10, 2014
    I am a big Russo fan having bought everything he has written so I naturally ordered this one. I have given it 5 stars as it is an excellent book, BUT IT IS THE SAME BOOK AS THE HARDBACK 'ON HELWIG STREET" which I bought last year ( see my complimentary review ). I have now returned it to Amazon and await their comments as to the fairness of marketing the same book twice under a different title and cover.

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