Elsewhere - Tapa dura

How do you describe Elsewhere? A novel so astoundingly original and carefully crafted that its complexities become common place and the common place resounds with poetry. In this delightful novel death is a begining, a new start. Liz is killed in a hit-and-run accident and her 'life' takes a very unexpected turn. At nearly sixteen she knows she will never get married, never have children, and perhaps never fall in love. But in Elsewhere all things carry on almost as they did on earth except that the inhabitants get younger, dogs and humans can communicate (at last), new relationships are formed and old ones, sadly interupted on earth, are renewed. Full of the most ingenious detail and woven around the most touching and charming relationships this is a novel of hope, of redemption and (literally) of re-birth. It is a novel that tells of sadness with heart-breaking honesty and of love and happiness with uplifting brilliance.

Gabrielle Zevin is a first time novelist of extra-ordinary talent. She lives in Manhattan where she also writes screen-plays.