South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Meaning of motherhood mulled
Sometimes it’s fun to read something that doesn’t fit in any particular category. Alexis Schaitkin’s “Elsewhere” is best described as a dark fairy tale, with elements of the supernatural, but with something very real to say about a topic all readers can relate to in one way or another — motherhood.
Schaitkin writes trenchantly about what it means to mother, the hardships and self-doubt balanced with the beauty and love. “A mother was a chance to hate someone as much as you loved them, caring and wounding, a push and pull that only tightened the knot that bound you,” writes Schaitkin from the perspective of her first-person narrator, Vera, a young woman growing up in a nameless, secluded mountain town, where mothers mysteriously vanish from time to time, a fact of life that everyone calls an “affliction.”
Vera’s mother disappeared when she was young, and as the story progresses and Vera herself gives birth, the novel takes on an eerie quality, as she wonders if she’ll be next.
The book’s other major theme is in the title. Residents of Vera’s hometown never leave except for the moms who vanish. They rely on a man named Mr. Phillips to arrive by train four times a year and bring them anything they can’t make or grow on their own. There’s a sense of comfort and peace in their town that trumps any curiosity they may have about what lies over the mountains. So when a stranger shows up one day, the townspeople fall all over themselves to ingratiate themselves to her. Those good vibes don’t last when the stranger forms close ties to one of the town’s residents, setting in motion the rest of the novel.
Summarizing the subsequent plot points simply doesn’t do “Elsewhere” justice. This is a book best savored. It’s brief, but filled with memorable lines like this that can be appreciated by mothers, fathers or anyone who has ever loved: “You do not get to keep what is sweetest to you; you only get to remember it from the vantage point of having lost it.” — Rob Merrill, Associated Press
As a freshman, Nina has a crush on her English teacher.
That’s how “The Most Precious Substance on Earth” begins. Author Shashi Bhat wastes no time with introductions or context because it’s all there in the universality of Nina’s hyper-specific experiences.
Nina soon develops a fascination with the occult and other religions. Her parents may be from India, but she’s Canadian to the core, eating Timbits and Googling the Hindu gods and goddesses her parents pray to. Meanwhile, her best friend, Amy, is learning how to occupy her time with boys and weed.
When Nina finds herself back in the classroom as a Grade 9 teacher, there’s a clear parallel between high school and adulthood.
Anyone might be an ally or an enemy under the right circumstances — a teacher, a friend, a parent, a student.
With the smooth suspense of a novel and the openness of a journal, Bhat’s writing is transportive as it pops from one major event to the next.
The vignettes reflect Nina’s growth through the writing’s voice and style. Early chapters use funky metaphors and chunks of context overflowing with detail. Later chapters are blunt, describing bare facts of events and allowing the gut-wrenching sorrow of mistakes, failures and regrets to live between the lines of the text. The entire novel is deeply effective and moving.
The setting has a strong sense of time and place. Nina’s teen years are so ’90s, and Bhat weaves in cultural shifts rolling from the 2000s into the ’20s.
“The Most Precious Substance on Earth” is both profound and meaningless. True to life, there is no great moral. The book is neither tragic nor triumphant. Bhat’s novel is a slice of life that will either ring eerily true, or be a highly educational experience in empathy.