Introduction

ONE OF THE “BEST WOMEN’S FICTION OF 2019 (SO FAR)”—MARIE CLAIRE
ONE OF THE “61 BOOKS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO READING IN 2019”—THE HUFFINGTON POST
ONE OF THE “16 FICTION RELEASES TO WATCH FOR”—WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS
ONE OF THE “BEST NEW BOOKS COMING OUT WINTER 2019”—SOUTHERN LIVING
ONE OF THE “10 NEWLY-RELEASED BOOKS THAT WILL GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO STAY INDOORS THIS WINTER”—O MAGAZINE


“I loved, loved this novel” —Lily King             “What more can I say—perfect” —Judy Blume

“In this intricate, delicate-as-rice-paper novel, an American painter living in Beijing and trying to clean up her act at a yoga retreat makes gains in fits and starts, ‘a butterfly, flitting from leaf to leaf.’”—O Magazine

From the widely praised author of Paris Was the Place—a shattering new novel that bravely delves into the darkest corners of addiction, marriage, and motherhood

When Elsey’s husband, Lukas, hands her a brochure for a weeklong mountain retreat, she knows he is really giving her an ultimatum: Go, or we’re done. Once a successful painter, Elsey set down roots in China after falling passionately for Lukas, the tall, Danish MC at a warehouse rave in downtown Beijing. Now, with two young daughters and unable to find a balance between her identities as painter, mother, and, especially, wife, Elsey fills her days worrying, drinking, and descending into desperate unhappiness. So, brochure in hand, she agrees to go and confront the ghosts of her past. There, she meets a group of men and women who will forever alter the way she understands herself: from Tasmin, another (much richer) expat, to Hunter, a young man whose courage endangers them all, and, most important, Mei--wife of one of China’s most famous artists and a renowned painter herself--with whom Elsey quickly forges a fierce friendship and whose candidness about her pain helps Elsey understand her own. But Elsey must risk tearing herself and Lukas further apart when she decides she must return to her childhood home--the center of her deepest pain--before she can find her way back to him. Written in a voice at once wry, sensual, blunt, and hypnotic, Elsey Come Home is a modern odyssey and a quietly dynamic portrait of contemporary womanhood.

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Excerpt

1

About a year ago my husband handed me a brochure for a retreat in a nearby mountain village called Song Yang. We were standing in our Beijing kitchen while the girls played make believe dog at our feet. The brochure was more like a hand-made pamphlet—four pieces of white computer paper folded in the middle and stapled three times along the crease. There was a grainy photo of a cement terrace on the cover, and a more alarming photo of people sitting in a room with their eyes closed, and text under the photos that explained something called a day of silence and yoga and the chance for participants to reinvent themselves. My husband, Lukas, told me these things would make a good week’s vacation for me, and he smiled while I looked at the photos, but it was a distant smile.

He went back to his bowl of rice, and I pressed myself against the edge of our stove until my lower back hurt, and I felt so lonely I almost cannot say. I knew if I went to this village, the week would pass slowly and I’d be changed, and that this was the point of him sending me there, but also that Lukas and I might not ever find each other again.

I’d recently had a small surgery with my thyroid, and the Chinese doctor said I would get better, and he was right and so I did. But I’d been in and out of hospitals that previous winter, and when I was home I lay on the couch while Lukas and the girls continued on with their lives. Myla was eight. Elisabeth was seven. They sweetly cleared their plates and cups from the table and put them in the dishwasher upside down. Lukas often read the bedtime stories, and I saw he was trying hard to help me but that I wasn’t needed as much as I thought, and that I must learn how to be a different kind of mother. A different kind of wife. It still feels like that now while I write this. That I cannot go back to the way I was before.

I will also say that when Lukas handed me the brochure in our kitchen I didn’t know how to be in a marriage. A real marriage. I’m not sure he did either. He is Danish, and by then he had lived in Beijing for fifteen years making music. He stormed about the government’s crackdown on journalists and the rising nationalism here, but I’m not sure he’d ever been taught how to listen.

The day before I left for Song Yang, we took the girls downtown to a Japanese restaurant called Hatsune which is quiet and lined with dark wood and tatami and serves large ceramic bowls of ramen and a sweet, sticky white rice Myla and Elisabeth love. After the rice got served, I told the girls I was going away for the week, and they stared at me with their grave eyes and clouds of hair. Then the fresh lemon sodas arrived, and neither of them seemed to register my announcement again, even though it was a rare announcement because I hardly ever left them. They played tic tac toe with a small pad of paper and pens I’d brought in my bag, and got up to look at the oversized catfish in the aquarium.

During the meal Elisabeth politely asked for a mayonnaise sandwich even though Hatsune was her favorite restaurant in Beijing, and she has always hated mayonnaise and refused to eat anything with mayonnaise on it. When we got home, Lukas made her the mayonnaise sandwich, and I stayed with her in the kitchen while she ate it, so Lukas could put Myla to bed. There are two steel stools with black matte leather seats at the end of the stone counter, and Elisabeth and I sat on these while she ate the whole sandwich, which became, I think, a kind of statement. Her long hair was tucked behind her ears which saved it from getting in the mayonnaise, and she didn’t say anything else about my leaving for the mountains. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. How does the book specifically point to the challenges of womanhood and its intricacies?

2. Elsey Come Home gives readers an intimate glimpse into the inner workings of a woman’s life. What can readers learn from Elsey’s experiences of the pressures of motherhood and the challenges of marriage?

3. When Elsey’s marriage reaches a breaking point, her husband suggests that she take time at a yoga retreat to try and regain the sense of self she seems to have lost along the way. Have you ever felt lost in your mothering journey, and how have you regained your footing?

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