Some Other Town - by Elizabeth Collison (Paperback)

About the Book

Channeling the emotional intensity of Susan Minot and Amy Bloom and infused with a witty, dream-like surrealism reminiscent of Margaret Atwood this mesmerizing debut takes us inside the unsettling world of Margaret Lydia Benning, which turns upside down when she falls in love and then unravels before our eyes.

What I have to tell Ben is just this. At last I am certain. All the signs, all the dreams are in. And I know now I have made a terrible mistake. I was wrong, it turns out, about us.

Margaret Lydia Benning lives adrift in the same Midwest town where she went to college. By day, she works at a low-level job for the Project, a university-sponsored educational publisher housed in a former sanatorium. There she shares the fourth floor with a squadron of eccentric editors and a resident ghost from the screamers wing. At night, Margaret returns to her small house on Mott Street, resigned to the disturbing overtures of her strange neighbor, Mrs. Eberline.

Emotionally sleepwalking through the days is no way to lead a life. But then Margaret meets Ben Adams, a visiting professor of art at the university. Despite the odds and their best intentions Margaret and her professor become lovers, and she glimpses a future she had never before imagined. For the first time, she has hope until Ben inexplicably vanishes. In the wake of his disappearance, Margaret sets out to find him. Her journey will force her to question everything she believes to be true.

Told through intertwined perspectives, by turns incandescent and haunting, Some Other Town is an unforgettable tale, with a heart-breaking twist, of one woman s awakening to her own possibility and her ability to love, and love well."

Book Synopsis

Channeling the emotional intensity of Susan Minot and Amy Bloom--and infused with a witty, dream-like surrealism reminiscent of Margaret Atwood--this mesmerizing debut takes us inside the unsettling world of Margaret Lydia Benning, which turns upside down when she falls in love...and then unravels before our eyes.

"What I have to tell Ben is just this. At last I am certain. All the signs, all the dreams are in. And I know now I have made a terrible mistake. I was wrong, it turns out, about us."

Margaret Lydia Benning lives adrift in the same Midwest town where she went to college. By day, she works at a low-level job for the Project, a university-sponsored educational publisher housed in a former sanatorium. There she shares the fourth floor with a squadron of eccentric editors and a resident ghost from the screamers' wing. At night, Margaret returns to her small house on Mott Street, resigned to the disturbing overtures of her strange neighbor, Mrs. Eberline.

Emotionally sleepwalking through the days is no way to lead a life. But then Margaret meets Ben Adams, a visiting professor of art at the university. Despite the odds--and their best intentions--Margaret and her professor become lovers, and she glimpses a future she had never before imagined. For the first time, she has hope...until Ben inexplicably vanishes. In the wake of his disappearance, Margaret sets out to find him. Her journey will force her to question everything she believes to be true.

Told through intertwined perspectives, by turns incandescent and haunting, Some Other Town is an unforgettable tale, with a heart-breaking twist, of one woman's awakening to her own possibility--and her ability to love, and love well.

From the Back Cover

Margaret Lydia Benning, twenty-eight and adrift, still lives in the same Midwest town where she went to college. By day, she works at the Project, a nonprofit publisher of children's readers housed in a former sanatorium. There she shares the fourth floor with a squadron of eccentric editors and a resident ghost from the screamers' wing. At night, Margaret returns alone to her small house on Mott Street, with only her strange neighbor, Mrs. Eberline, for company.

Emotionally sleepwalking through the days is no way to lead a life. But then Margaret meets Ben Adams, a visiting professor at the university. Through her deepening relationship with Ben she glimpses a future she had never before imagined, and for the first time she has hope . . . until Ben inexplicably vanishes. In the wake of his disappearance, Margaret sets out to find him. Her journey, a revelatory exploration of the separate worlds that exist inside us and around us, will force her to question everything she believes to be true.

Told through intertwined perspectives, by turns incandescent and haunting, Some Other Town is an unforgettable tale, with a heartbreaking twist, of one woman's awakening to her own possibility.

Review Quotes

"In her charming, emotionally true debut novel, Elizabeth Collison captures the queasiness of young adulthood as an intelligent young woman discovers just what, and whom, she wants." - Michelle Huneven, author of Round Rock, Jamesland, Blame, and Off Course
"A gently otherworldly debut." - Booklist
"A character-driven book...[it] has an ending that will leave your jaw open.... It's not your average, straightforward novel, and that's what makes it so memorable.... Here's to hoping Collison keeps producing such fine work." - BookRiot.com
"As the narrative deepens, the reader gets a sense that Margaret is, if not precisely an unreliable narrator, one who dispenses with information when it suits her, and that the whole story is built on quicksand. Her voice is wry, peculiar, and compelling.... And so a story that could be familiar and clichéd is instead utterly transformed, becoming deeply specific, capturing the experience of blinking and discovering years have slipped past without notice.... And so the novel asks: how do you restart a stalled life? It's not a new question, but Some Other Town is certainly a funny, fresh, and real answer." - NPR.org
"Wry, peculiar, and compelling.... The novel asks: how do you restart a stalled life? It's not a new question, but Some Other Town is certainly a funny, fresh, and real answer." - NPR.org
"In Elizabeth Collison's Some Other Town, bad neighbors, ghosts, and breakups converge into one beautiful story.... The novel's shifting structure keeps the pace light on its feet, and the strange, beautiful scenes within the converted house of horrors workplace are consistently a bizarre joy. The dark, ridiculous humor that seeps through these mad moments was my favorite part of the book." - Bustle.com
"In Elizabeth Collison's Some Other Town, bad neighbors, ghosts, and breakups converge into one beautiful story." - Bustle.com