Elsewhere - by Katherine Oktober Matthews (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"If you enjoy smart, melancholy female voices tinged with dry humor, you'll treasure this poignant, intimate book." -- Elizabeth Clark Libert In Elsewhere, author and photographer Katherine Oktober Matthews examines her compulsion to travel--a fundamental need to be moving. She lays bare her existential journey as a mixed-format essay and journal written on the road, made even more personal through her contemplative photos, quietly coursing with an underlying conflict. Flitting between cities and blinking back and forth through time, Elsewhere pulsates with a nebulous sense of home and the deep wish to belong. In this innovative personal essay of words and photos, raw and insightful of a time and a generation, Matthews traces the widening recognition that the one thing a wanderer takes with her everywhere is herself.

Review Quotes

"The photos and text of Katherine Matthews' Elsewhere stage the travelogue as a journey into the peripheries and extremities of the self. Jaded exchanges in dive bars and highway diners, blurred and shadowy images of lampshades, clouds, roads and parklands all assume a strange and exhilarating immediacy and beauty. A book to pore over again and again." --Josh Cohen



"Katherine Oktober Matthews has created an exceptional stew of words and photographs in her new monograph, Elsewhere. She has packed a suitcase of experiences, documented with profound seeing and thinking, as she navigates unfamiliar terrains alone. Solo travel creates a particular space for self-reflection, and in Matthew's experience, an internal dialogue that looks inward, while at the same time observing small details and moments through her camera. This unique combination of storytelling, with two parallel expressions that poetically speak to elevating and expanding the visual experience, reminds us that travel is not to find yourself, but to remember who you've been all along. -- Aline Smithson, Founder of Lenscratch, Artist and Educator


"What struck me most were Matthews' conversations and internal dialogues during her interactions with men. In these moments, she astutely captures a paradox women face: every encounter with a man carries the potential for danger due to his sexual desire, yet, through this very desire, women hold power. "Matthews' modern voice conveys ache and desperation with clarity, exploring the unique journeys we undertake to heal and reclaim ourselves. If you enjoy smart, melancholy female voices tinged with dry humor, you'll treasure this poignant, intimate book." -- Elizabeth Clark Libert



"Loneliness and beauty travel together in Elsewhere, which pairs bleakly romantic memoir with evocative photos to narrate the experience of an American abroad. In these brief stories Matthews meets old friends, mourns lost loves, and stays on the move, taking haunting pictures as she goes. The effect is compelling, memorable, and recognizable to anyone who's ever tried to find herself by leaving home." -- Julie Phillips, author of The Baby on the Fire Escape and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award