Sunday, March 1, 2015

Some Other Town - Elizabeth Collison

Some Other Town
Elizabeth Collison
Harper Perennial, Feb 24 2015, $14.99
ISBN: 9780062348821

With no ambition whatsoever and even less hope for the future, twenty-eight years old Margaret Lydia Benning went off to college.  Five years after graduating she remains in town residing on Mott St. next door to eccentric fortune-telling lunatic Mrs. Eberline.  Margaret works as a low-wage nonentity at the university’s children educational publishing house located in what was once a sanatorium at the edge of town.  Besides arrogant editors, she shares her work space with a sanitarium screamer spirit.

The university hires Art Professor Ben Adams as a visiting lecturer.  When he and Margaret meet they connect and quickly become lovers.  Margaret’s bland survival existence turns euphoric as she sees a wonderful future with her Ben.  Without telling Margaret, Ben disappears for no apparent reason.  Fearing for him almost as much as her trepidation of returning back to her haunting dreams and previous drab survival; Margaret searches for her missing lover.

This is an extremely complex and rightfully convoluted character-driven drama that, through a variety of fascinating first person perspectives (particularly two voices capture the reader), tells the tale of a young woman barely existing until love shows her how to enjoy life or perhaps not.  Not an easy read as the audience must fully concentrate or miss key elements but definitely worth the time, Some Other Town is a profound twister.


Harriet Klausner 

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