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'sacclaimed novelswill 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 goalbeautifully recounted herewere to prove lifelong, as would Gloversville's fearsome grasp on them both. Fraught with the timelessdynamic of going home again, encompassing hopes and fears and the relentless tides of familial and individual complications, thisstory is arresting, comic, heartbreaking, and truly beautiful, an immediate classic.
From Booklist
Pulitzer Prizewinning 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 couldnt 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 Russos many fans will be lining up for his first nonfiction work, which has generated considerable prepublication buzz. --Joanne Wilkinson
Review
A gorgeously nuanced memoir about Russos mother and his own lifelong tour of duty spentlovingly and exhaustedlylooking 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
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