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Elsey Come Home

Susan Conley (Goodreads Author)

3.45 · Rating details · 246 ratings · 72 reviews

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 ...more

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Kindle Edition, 256 pages

Published January 15th 2019 by Knopf

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3.45 ·

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· 246 ratings · 72 reviews

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Jan 07, 2019 Britta Böhler rated it it was ok

Shelves: netgalley, 2019, 2019new-release, femlit, fiction, kindle, 01secondshelf-read

Not a terrible book but, how can I put it, a bit... boring.

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Feb 04, 2019 Dan rated it liked it

Susan Conley’s Elsey Come Home revolves around alcoholism, marriage, and motherhood. Maine-born and -bred Elsey lives in Beijing with Lukas, her Danish electronic musician husband and their two young daughters. Elsey tells us that ”. . . I didn’t know how to be in a marriage. A real marriage. I’m not sure he did, either.” Once a commercially successful artist represented by no less than Saatchi, Elsey has stopped painting. Her recovery from thyroid surgery and her recurring arm pain sap her ener ...more

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Dec 03, 2018 Jill rated it really liked it

There's something about Elsey you're bound to like.

She's vulnerable and open, wry and perceptive, refreshingly blunt and self-deprecating-but most of all, she's hurting up a storm. When we first meet her, she is about to venture forth on a week-long mountain retreat, a chance for participants to reinvent themselves. It's a veiled ultimatum from her husband Lucas, who is almost at the end of his rope from her drinking issues. Elsey's fear is that if she goes, she and Lucas may never find each oth ...more

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Dec 15, 2018 Bonnie Brody rated it it was ok

Elsey is a woman who is fearful of intimacy and goes so far as to lie or dissociate rather than deal with her emotions. She was once a fairly well-known and respected artist who sold her work regularly. However, after marrying Lukas and having children, she feels like she can't be both a mother and an artist. Instead, she drinks....and then drinks some more. Lukas is beside himself, as the children have grown frightened and often neglected. He strongly suggests that Elsey go on a retreat to Shas ...more

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Jan 22, 2019 Jennifer rated it really liked it

She’s a wife, a mother, an artist who doesn’t believe in herself. When her husband Lukas tells her about a retreat called Shashan, she leaves her family for a week of rediscovering herself, waiting for that moment when she is “fixed” from her demons. Here’s an excerpt that really struck me: “I worked hard then to remember Lukas loved me and my girls loved me and that I wasn’t being punished. I was being helped. I stayed caught between being weak and being helped and in this way Shashan called on ...more

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Jan 25, 2019 Cherise Wolas rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reading-challenge, atmospheric, books-about-loss, contemporary-fiction, fiction, literary

Elsey is not fully inhabiting her life or her skin. She's American, from Maine, and living in Beijing with her husband Lukas, a successful electronic music composer and DJ, and their two young daughters, Myla and Elisabeth. Once a successful painter, we are dropped into her world as she's grappling or not grappling with her drinking problem, her unresolved grief over the loss of her younger sister in childhood, and her husband's desire to fix their marriage. Seemingly always quiet, she has gone ...more

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Jan 29, 2019 Paltia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Elsey is a woman who, at first, thinks she can keep running away from herself. She gives up her art where all her emotions were expressed to try and be a mother. Essentially this is about unresolved grief, if grief ever resolved. More accurately it is about unexpressed grief. She feels she is neither wife nor mother and tries to find solace in alcohol. While at a retreat she becomes acquainted with an artist, Mei. Mei so different from Elsey yet they click. This is a novel about introspection. E ...more

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Dec 13, 2018 BookGypsy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Once a successful painter, Elsey can't find the joy she once felt in life. Married with two children, Elsey drowns herself in alcohol and can't find her place as artist, wife and mother. When her husband gives her a brochure for a mountain retreat she knows she has to go. Once at the retreat Elsey meets people and finally understands what she has to do to find happiness. A really great story. Multi layered plot. I really enjoyed this.

I was give a copy from the publisher for my honest review.
Dawn ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Isabel Blakefield rated it it was amazing

This novel wasn't at all what I anticipated. It was beautifully written and in places, it felt lyrical in other spots it was frantic and yet in others, it stopped and moved very slowly. It took me about a quarter of the book to feel like I understood what was happening. I almost stopped reading early on because I didn't know where we were going and I was feeling too distant and disconnected from Elsey, the protagonist. I was sort of wrong and I'm glad I kept going. I think the early part of this This novel wasn't at all what I anticipated. It was beautifully written and in places, it felt lyrical in other spots it was frantic and yet in others, it stopped and moved very slowly. It took me about a quarter of the book to feel like I understood what was happening. I almost stopped reading early on because I didn't know where we were going and I was feeling too distant and disconnected from Elsey, the protagonist. I was sort of wrong and I'm glad I kept going. I think the early part of this book Elsey is disconnected and so I couldn't understand her because she was too distant from herself to offer a connection when reading her in first person. But when I looked up, when Elsey started reflecting a little ways in, I realized I was truly immersed in Elsey's head and I was thankful for the early part of the book because it set the groundwork.

I didn't realize that this book was about Elsey's alcoholism until halfway through because again I don't think Elsey realized that this was an account of her alcoholism until then either.
(Although, I don't want to pigeonhole the book into being about one thing - alcoholism - because it's about a full person's life which included a struggle with alcohol) The parts of this book that were the most potent were the parts where Elsey repeated her patterns even while she tried to change them - even when she didn't acknowledge this was what she was doing and when she hit a point where she broke those patterns because she had to I was there fully with her. This was a beautiful book about a woman figuring herself out and I appreciated being there for all the complexities along the way.

Also, as a side note, I like how the author acknowledged, I think, through Elsey her own inability to comment for the people of China and her privilege. This diluted the trope of a foreigner coming to an "exotic" place and claiming that place as theirs to use for healing or to use as a backdrop for their own savior narrative. I think it's clear that this was on Susan Coley's mind as she wrote and from my own position, I think her perspective hit the right note.

I received an advanced copy of this book for free in return for my honest review. ...more

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Sep 22, 2018 Jmm rated it it was amazing

This spunky and surprising book is a meditation on motherhood—what it gives and what it can take. Why we put it off and also why we embrace it. Which broken parts inside of us it can heal and which it never can. In meditating on this singular and yet nearly universal experience—in settings Conley makes familiar even when they aren’t (to this reader anyway)—this lyrical novelist explores more than motherhood, more than womanhood. She explores the state of being human. I would follow Elsey anywher ...more

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Dec 13, 2018 BookGypsy rated it really liked it

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Sep 21, 2018 Lewis Robinson rated it it was amazing

This novel is smart and wry and completely engrossing. I found myself constantly starring/underlining sentences; there are so many to savor. I loved the short chapters and the movement in time. I never once felt bored as Elsey's story unfolded. It’s economically written, though it feels lush with the colors/smells/sounds of its setting. There's such wisdom and beauty in this book.

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Jan 24, 2019 Allen Adams rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, published-reviews

https://www.themaineedge.com/buzz/por...

I’ve been a book reviewer for over a decade. As such, I have seen a lot of books cross my desk – so many, in fact, that there’s no way that I could ever read them all. Some cuts are easy, while others are genuinely hard decisions.

One such cut I made back in 2011 was Susan Conley’s memoir “The Foremost Good Fortune.” It was one of the hard ones, but I made it. And when I finally revisited the book some years later, I realized that not only was the decision ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 thewanderingjew rated it really liked it

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 a 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.

...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Kathy rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

I received a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Two and a half stars.

Several elements of Elsey Come Home mirror Conley's memoir The Foremost Good Fortune; Conley's experience living in China with cancer clearly inspired some of this novel. However, the novel lacks focus and vacillates between several subplots and themes including addiction, marriage and parenthood, Elsey's friendship with a Chinese woman she meets at a retreat, her career as a painter, and her childhood memories. The i ...more

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Feb 18, 2019 Mary Lins rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: complete

“Elsey Come Home”, by Susan Conley, is Elsey’s first person account of the week she spent on a mountain yoga retreat in the mountains of China in order to become “more user-friendly” to her family.

Elsey, a successful painter, lives in Beijing with her husband and two young daughters. Her reflection on her life and how motherhood affects the artist, could have struck the reader as “naval gazing” and “rich people problems”, but Elsey is not without self-awareness, and her naked and honest struggle ...more

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Feb 04, 2019 Sika rated it it was amazing

This was a beautifully written novel that I couldn’t put down. It was the kind of writing where I reread certain sentences or paragraphs several times because they put to words feelings and emotions that are very difficult to capture. It’s a novel about a woman’s personal journey from being lost and disconnected to finding her way forward. The small and large traumas of life accumulated over many years until they had to be dealt with and could no longer be deprioritzed. It felt incredibly person ...more

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Oct 04, 2018 Susan Walker rated it really liked it

This story of a mother, wife and painter at a crossroads is a winner. The character of Elsey is wonderful.

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Feb 01, 2019 Mw rated it did not like it

Shelves: library

I didn’t enjoy this book at all. Not sure why, as I think it had a lot of interesting elements: former artist now expat in China struggling with illness, children, marriage, her sisters long ago death, alcoholism. Odd yoga retreat. But for some reason, it never clicked. I found it disjointed, boring, and not for me.

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Jan 29, 2019 Nada rated it it was ok

Shelves: r-pfr

Elsey Come Home by Susan Conley is the journey of a woman struggling with addiction. In some ways, the book begins with the ending. The rest of the book is further definition how Elsey gets there. This book confuses me. Too many characters. Too many time periods. Too many details. And yet, at the same time, not enough to pull me in emotionally. Sadly, I find myself unable to follow and unable to be the reader for this book.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2019...

Revi ...more

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Jan 21, 2019 Jane Sloven rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read straight through Elsey Come Home, taking time out only to make notes on a slew of sentences. So many were gems—sentences that encapsulated truths or ones that open the heart.

This book looks small, but it’s very, very large in so many ways. It skilfully portrays our struggles as women, balancing creativity with marriage and parenting and relationships. It is also a story of Americans living abroad in China, a country which comes alive here, too. Elsey Come Home is a beautiful, deep, thoug ...more

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Jan 09, 2019 Romantic Intentions Quarterly rated it really liked it

Shelves: womens-fiction

It’s possible that there is just too much going on in this book. There is Elsey – wry, clever, falling apart Elsey – an artist who has lost her will to paint in the wake of motherhood. There is Elsey’s alcohol problem, which her DJ husband decides to solve by sending her to a retreat in the Chinese mountains. (They live in China, it should be mentioned.) There are the fellow lost souls she meets there, and Elsey’s long-buried trauma, and her feelings of unworthiness. And all the time you’re worr ...more

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Sep 26, 2018 Ashley rated it it was amazing

Have you ever gone shopping on an empty stomach and you can’t make any decisions? That’s what this book was like. I felt that same foggy feeling that Elsey describes throughout the entire book. It also made me want to eat chicken and dumplings, but I think that’s just me. But maybe it will be you too?

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Sep 25, 2018 Katherine Longstreth rated it it was amazing

I found the voice of Elsey to be so relatable that it was unnerving. This is an unflinching look at the interior world of an artist, a mother, a wife and a drinker. After an illness knocks Elsey off her game in a surprisingly complete way, she struggles to find herself within these four identities. What is so impressive about this book is that the overwhelming, foggy struggle of Elsey's state of mind, almost like that of a person struggling with synesthesia, is conveyed by a voice which is spare ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 Denise Carver rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

As a fan of Susan Conley’s The Foremost Good Fortune, I eagerly anticipated her newest release, and needless to say, I was not disappointed. Susan Conley writes in a way that feels intimate and detailed and leaves you feeling connected with the characters, even in this shorter work. When it first started out, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the premise - a woman struggling with life, love and parenting, being sent away by her husband to a yoga retreat (yawn); however, by the time I was more than ...more

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May 29, 2018 Karin Schott rated it liked it

I am reading an advanced copy of this book.

There will be a full review soon. However I wanted to share this moment...

Behold! A bookseller sorting advanced reader copies in the back room...

"Oh, wow! Look at that great cover art. Hmm." Bookseller flips book over to read about the book.
"Check out the blurbs! Michael Paterniti, oh I love his collection of essays. Hey? Look! Bill Roorbach blurbed it! Loved his Remedy for Love. Richard Russo too?! Hmm, these are all Maine authors. Conley is from Main ...more

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Feb 10, 2019 Patricia Baker rated it it was ok

do not know what I expected from this book. it was well written, the story line was depressing. Elsey had a sister who died of cancer while she was in high school. I do not think she ever grieved completely for her sister and that shaped her future life. she found some focus as an artist, but as a married woman with two girls of her own she lost her place. alcohol helped to fill the gag until it did not. off to a weekend long find yourself retreat which was a little bit of a torture. at the end ...more

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Feb 17, 2019 Craig Adams rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Elsey Come Home is a thoughtful, quick read on a life becoming unmoored. Elsey, a expat in China, has lost her desire to paint, is losing her connection to her husband and daughters, and is spiraling downwards into alcoholism.

When her husband signs her up for a yoga retreat in the mountains near the Great Wall, which Conley describes with constrained precision, it starts Elsey’s reassessments her life.

Conley captures the impermanence of marriage, parenting, work, and self worth in short chapte ...more

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Feb 02, 2019 Karen rated it liked it

3.5 stars.

This quick little book started out not being able to hold my attention too much but by the time I was more than halfway through I was really invested in Elsey. There is so much suffering and so much realness and so much tenderness in this book. Marriage is hard. Being a human is hard. And while I don't drink, I could still connect to her feeling of wanting to escape and her feelings around choosing between being a mother and being a thing you want to be (painter in this case) and bein ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Electa Sevier rated it it was amazing

This is a beautiful novel about motherhood and family. It drew me in from the very beginning and I loved being in Elsey's head. She is at once so familiar, as a mother who is torn between her role as a mother and her ambitions and dreams, and so unusual to me, as an expat living in China. Conley captures all the ways that family can subsume you and how important it is to find yourself within it. The vignettes throughout this novel were so vivid and kept me firmly ensconced in Elsey's world. This ...more

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About Susan Conley

Susan Conley

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Susan Conley is the author of Elsey Come Home (Knopf, January 2019), a Library Journal Pre-Pub Alert pick for January. Kirkus writes that the "novel illustrates the power of storytelling as a process for healing. What entices and endures here is the voice: dreamy, meditative, hypnotic, and very real."
Susan is also the author of Paris Was the Place (Knopf, August 2013), an Amazon Fall Big Books Pic ...more