Beautiful Somewhere Else: A Novel [Paperback]

Stephen Policoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 2004

Ever since he was an aspiring teen magician, thirty-eight-year-old Paul Brickner has been obsessed with the enigmatic Sung Soo. Known as the “Wondrous Chinese Wizard,” Sung Soo was a famous con artist who taught Houdini many of his famous illusions. Paul has long since abandoned his magician aspirations but not his Sung Soo Project, which has taken many different forms over the years. Paul has been performing his own personal vanishing act for much of his adult life, trying to escape his own anxieties, responsibilities, fears, commitments, and the guilt he feels about the tragic ending of his second marriage. But things have been a little different since he met Nadia, nearly twenty years his junior and a gentle and lovely foil to Paul’s profound negativity. Shortly after arriving on Cape Cod for vacation, Paul and Nadia are joined by two old friends and one troubled ex-boyfriend. When a hurricane makes landfall and knocks out the electricity, everyone drinks a little too much, and things start getting very strange, and somehow serve to bring Paul and Nadia closer together. Funny, moving, and compellingly supernatural, award-winning writer Stephen Policoff's Beautiful Somewhere Else is a mesmerizing debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Alien abductions and a magician's vanishing acts figure as heavy-handed metaphors for the desire to escape from oneself in this first novel. Paul Brickner, 38, and his much younger girlfriend, Nadia, retreat to Cape Cod, where they hope to forget the wounds of Paul's two failed marriages and Nadia's obsessed ex-boyfriend, Fred. No such luck. Fred shows up almost immediately, raving of "lights" and "the Others," stories that are eerily familiar to Paul. Paul's drug-and-therapy-addled aging rocker friend, Tommy, and Nadia's angry girlfriend, Jennifer, also crash the couple's vacation. Soon everyone's psychological issues dominate the story: Tommy's oppressive father, Nadia's absent one, Jennifer's sexual neediness, Fred's fixation on Nadia, and above all, Paul's relentless guilt over deserting his second wife after a traumatic miscarriage. When a hurricane and its attendant chaos descend on the Cape and Tommy disappears, Paul loses himself in a psychedelic dream world, pursuing his friend, the visions of the Lights and an escape from his tortured memories. Paul is researching the escape artist Sung Soo, and allusions to this contemporary of Houdini who mysteriously disappeared punctuate the narrative. (Sung Soo also may have witnessed the same "lights" and "Others" as did Fred, Paul and Tommy.) Policoff sets up an unsubtle parallel between Sung Soo and Paul's vanishing acts, and both characters' stories come to abrupt, rather bewildering endings. Though a few affecting moments enliven the novel, a repetitive emphasis on obvious emotional scars and on UFO-like signs and omens renders the book too melodramatic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In his first novel, Policoff shows a flair for pithy characterizations that serve to limn the zeitgeist. Thirty-eight-year-old Paul Brickner is bent on obliterating the memories of his disastrous second marriage through a relationship with lovely, winsome Nadia, who is 20 years younger. During a much-needed vacation on Cape Cod, they are visited by a series of old friends, including Nadia's unstable ex-boyfriend, Fred, who shows up uninvited, speaking of UFOs and his undying love for Nadia; Nadia's best friend, Jennifer, a multipierced wild child who seems jealous of her friend's new relationship; and Paul's oldest friend, Tommy, who, despite his anarchic rock-'n'-roll lifestyle, is still wrestling with his relationship with his father. Amid generational and personality clashes, the weather turns wicked as a hurricane approaches. Unfortunately, as soon as Hurricane Bob hits, the plot implodes in a series of incomprehensible scenes that involve the Lights, the Truth, and the Others. Nevertheless, pre-Bob, Policoff displays vivid descriptive skills and a low-key, subtle sense of humor, especially evident in his characterization of gloomy Paul. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; 1st Carroll & Graf Ed edition (March 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786713216
• ISBN-13: 978-0786713219
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,731,870 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, wry pageturner with a brain., June 30, 2004

By 

Amy (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beautiful Somewhere Else: A Novel (Paperback)

This isn't a quick bathroom read: sex, drugs, obsession, longing and the supernatural woven into a tight atmopsheric narrative about a man stuck in time, among other places. Policoff's character is what happens when Hawthorne meets Capote and Woody Allen drives by to wave hello. Too moody to be a throwaway summer/beach rag; sip a dark beer while you read - this book is pure autumn.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Escape Worthy, May 25, 2004

By 

"rmd2432" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beautiful Somewhere Else: A Novel (Paperback)

"Beautiful Somewhere Else" is a quick read, with instantly interesting characters that are both likeable and not, but nonetheless extremely entertaining. Policoff's writing is both funny and sincere, and creates a perfect narrative to a sometimes far-fetched plot. But from page one, til the end, you are completely enthralled in the world that is set up before you. The story captures you, brings you to somewhere else that is mystical, detailed, and weird. A true novel that steps outside of reality with characters that are very familiar. A quick and utterly perfect read for the warm days of summer.

5.0 out of 5 stars Obsessive summer, August 9, 2004

By 

P. Belanger (Maynard, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beautiful Somewhere Else: A Novel (Paperback)

Although this is not your classic light beach reading, you should bring it to that summer rental house because it takes you on a different kind of trip. Not only is the novel mostly set on the Cape , but it captures the end-of-summer inner turmoil that is more real and true than the plot description would indicate. The obsessive character of the protagonist is particularly vivid and drives the sensational descriptions throughout the book. A wonderful first novel!