Elsewhere Audiobook By Richard Russo cover art

Elsewhere

A memoir

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Elsewhere

By: Richard Russo
Narrated by: Richard Russo
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After eight commanding works of fiction, the Pulitzer Prize winner now turns to memoir in a hilarious, moving, and always surprising account of his life, his parents, and the upstate New York town they all struggled variously to escape.

Anyone familiar with Richard Russo's acclaimed novels will recognize Gloversville once famous for producing that eponymous product and anything else made of leather. This is where the author grew up, the only son of an aspirant mother and a charming, feckless father who were born into this close-knit community. But by the time of his childhood in the 1950s, prosperity was inexorably being replaced by poverty and illness (often tannery-related), with everyone barely scraping by under a very low horizon.

A world elsewhere was the dream his mother instilled in Rick, and strived for herself, and their subsequent adventures and tribulations in achieving that goal—beautifully recounted here—were to prove lifelong, as would Gloversville's fearsome grasp on them both. Fraught with the timeless dynamic of going home again, encompassing hopes and fears and the relentless tides of familial and individual complications, this story is arresting, comic, heartbreaking, and truly beautiful, an immediate classic.

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Critic reviews

“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
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I tremendously enjoyed this memoir which was very well read by the author himself (I’m not always a big fan of authors reading but when they do it well it’s great). I’m shocked by some of the other reviews and wonder why they are so put off by what I find a truly compassionate rendering of life with mental illness. The author clearly was devoted to his mother and seemed to be working through the ramifications of his daughter’s OCD diagnosis and what that meant for his mother’s life. So many of us from earlier less psychologically sophisticated generations grew up with parents whose ‘quirks’ impacted our lives in ways we didn’t understand. I found the book interesting also in reflecting on many of the maternal characters in his fiction. In any case I highly recommend this memoir and found the audiobook version very engaging.

Illuminating and compassionate memoir

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Would you listen to Elsewhere again? Why?

I probably would not listen again because I tend not to re-listen. But I would definitely reread some of the passages. The preface is a lyrical tribute to a town and the craftsman that were dependent on a dying industry. The author also has beautifully captured what it is like to have a difficult parent.

What other book might you compare Elsewhere to and why?

Philip Roth's Patrimony or Mary Karr's memoirs. These are all memoirs of living with a difficult parent--yet in the way that all sad families are different, the stories are very different. All of these authors write very well.

Any additional comments?

I have not liked Russo's fiction but will now try again. I found his fiction contrived but this memoir demonstrates that truth is stranger than fiction and the human heart contains multitudes. Russo's loving tribute to his difficult mother is a rare & beautiful book.

Affecting memoir

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If you’ve read his novels, you’ve met his mother! I truly loved this! It starts a little slow but give it time!

Reads like a novel

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I like Russo's fiction. Period. So, I thought I'd give his nonfiction a try. I chose the wrong one. Something about his mother, fine. What's a memoir without mom? But half-way into the book I realized this wasn't as much a memoir as it was a biography of Russo's mother and it wasn't going to change. Russo's mom is--well, tiresome and she stays in character till the bitter end. I felt sorry for Russo but writing this painful non-memoir was probably therapeutic. Also, I generally avoid books read out loud by the author. A good writer doesn't (often) make for a good reader. It seems counterintuitive but my worst listeniing experiences have been with authors as readers. Oh well...back to Russo's fiction, which I highly recommend!

Elsewhere---but not far enough

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Mothers generally hold such a place of primacy that giving any description of who they are becomes a description of who we are unless you're very, very careful. Richard Russo created a clear and engaging memoir full of love, frustration, anger, commitment that will ring true to anyone who has found themselves in the position parenting their parent. A very enjoyable read.

For anyone who took responsibility for a parent...

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