Abstract

Elsewhere and Other Stories
Christopher Brown

Elsewhere and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction that explores notions of selfhood as they relate to space and place. Within these stories, characters struggle internally with alienation, aimlessness, and self-doubt, but it is through interactions with the external (or natural) world that they are able to contemplate the elusive – and sometimes detrimental – aspects of their identities. Whether it be from inside a house to the backyard, or from Kingston to Banff National Park, what enables each character’s quiet self-discovery is the movement from one place to another; in a sense, each character must be uprooted in order to grasp an interior sense of belonging. As the stories are predominantly set outdoors, they often depict encounters between protagonists and the wilderness in ways that reflect how fleeting moments can have the most richly complicated effects on the individual’s perception of the world. Bears, crows, trees, mountains—these representatives of the foreign and unfamiliar are what lead the characters of the Elsewhere and Other Stories to a better understanding of home, direction, and selfhood.