Customer Reviews

Beautiful Somewhere Else: A Novel

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

"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.

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!

Barthelme, Chagall, Pierre Franey, Zoltar, Nick Drake.
It's all here.
"Beautiful Somewhere Else" is readywhip magic, a lovely chatterbox of a book filled with delicious surprises.
Reminds one of the last scene in Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451" where Oskar Werner (as Montag the Fireman) reads from "David Copperfield" and jump-starts his own emotional thawing-out.
The memories flood in, cue Bernard Herrmann, and suddenly you're in another country.
Somewhere else.