Elsey Come Home, Susan Conley, author; narrator, Cassandra Campbell
This is a quick read, perfect for a plane ride and vacation. It examines the “coming of age” of a woman Elsey, a painter, who should have already achieved the status of an adult. However, the death of her sister, when she was very young, and her mother’s reaction to it, shaped and distorted her view of herself and her life. Although she has an ideal life, with a loving husband, Lukas, and two children, Myla and Elisabeth, age 7 and 8, and she is living in China with everything she could want, let alone need, she still feels the need to drink excessively to make the world more bearable.
Elsey is selfish because she sees everything through the lens of her own pain. She concentrates on the loss of her sister and of what is missing in her life, rather than on what is good in it. When her husband suggests she go away to a small village to rest and have a brief week-long vacation, to meditate and “dry up”, quit drinking, that is, she goes, knowing it is the only thing that will save her marriage.
There are some familiar faces at the retreat, along with several strangers. It is a place where they do yoga, have talking circles, days of silence and hiking. It is a place where cell phones do not work. It is a place where she can rediscover who she is and really wants to be. As she meets and interacts with all the people, she grows more introspective and begins to work out her own shortcomings and to resolve her own problems.
At times, the story seems to be a series of anecdotes strung together in an uncertain order. Although brief, there are a few holes that need more clarification, like the surgery she had to undergo on her thyroid and the detrimental results from which she suffered. Who is the man she pays to ask her questions and why does she see him? How long has she been seeing him? It would also be nice to know why and when she drinks. Why are the children so fearful? Why are they living in China? Lukas, a musician, is from Denmark and Elsey, a painter, is from Maine in the United States. The author does not make China sound very appealing, but rather a bit frightening.
As we examine Elsey’s experiences, thoughts and memories, we discover what troubles her, although not fully. Her marriage may be on the rocks because of her drinking. She is indecisive, always wanting to do something or make a phone call, yet she never does. She makes excuses all the time and must learn to understand her excuses to finally heal herself and come to terms with her problems. Every encounter she has seems rife with uncertainty and danger. When she flies, there is a severe storm which impacts her flight. When she is on “vacation” the life of one of the guests is threatened. Her cab driver falls asleep at the wheel. Myla suffers from an appendicitis attack, her friend Mai grows ill.
Finally, we watch Elsey begin to come into her own, to finally morph into the adult she wants to be, but it will take work and time, and she now understands it is worth it to maintain the status quo, keep her family and remain with her loving husband. Soon she is able to engage with her children and her husband more fully. She understands that the death of her young sister, her charge, was not her fault; that her mother was unable to accept her death, and as a result, she too struggled to deal with it. She had no way, and no one, to work out her own grief with, and this internalized it. She seemed a bit undeveloped, slightly flighty and shallow, selfish and a bit ungrateful for all she had. She was not engaged with life or people around her, including her children. She was unaware of Myla or Elisabeth’s height or weight, social security numbers or other personal statistics. While the book held my interest, and it was interesting to watch Elsey grow, I didn’t like many of the characters and would have liked the story to be more fully developed.