I don’t have too much to say about this book. It’s one of the last vestiges of my time teaching at GFS back in the day. The novel is a Young Adult text and deals with the subjects of premature death and what happens in the afterlife.
In terms of delivery and focus, it falls somewhere around The Lovely Bones, Beetlejuice, and No Exit. I use the word “around” since it is nowhere near the quality or thoughtfulness of those other works.
The notion that Elsewhere is the destination everyone reaches after death and is where we all become younger and younger until the point that we hit zero and are transported back to earth to be born echoes Platonic reminiscence and the soul’s infinite journey between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. As such, Zevin is courting some weighty ideas, but the novel falls short of the profound because it is altogether too trite, too superficial, too glib. It is a Young Adult text, so perhaps I’m doing it a disservice with that observation. I do feel that the author could have done more with the topic, however.
One memorable element for me is the chapter, “Time Passes.” Inexplicably, Zevin has provided an homage to T.S. Eliot in that short chapter. As I was grinding through the narrative (a deal is a deal, Su), “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and maybe Four Quartets (“Burnt Norton” specifically) suddenly appeared. Perhaps that’s part of the reason I think Zevin could have done more with this topic. There are some thundering themes begging to be born in this tale, and she knows it, but they are stifled in utero, perhaps more ironically, post-mortem. Eliot is probably rolling in his grave or, if the premise of Elsewhere is to believed, approaching the age of 21 (as I write this) on his journey to zero. I just hope his "deaging" is proving to be less angsty than Zevin's protagonist's journey turned out to be.
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