The Book of Elsewhere is pulp sci-fi wrapped in literary fiction. Or literary fiction masquerading as pulp sci-fi. Or both. Or neither. It is a duality. It is gorgeous, arcane, and prosaic. It is eggs and pigs and blood and frenzy. It is the loss of the self, and the return. The prose is sulfurous, oceanic, tight, and expectant. It compels you to read it. It drags you under and drowns you in mystery and cruelty and absence, then leaves you gasping for air in moments of introspection and reflection. It is at turns explosive and sedate, complex and streamlined, isolating and hypnotizing. In short, The Book of Elsewhere rips. It puts your brain in a fugue state, stomps on it, caresses it, confuses it, and spits you out with a headache and blood in your mouth and a sense of completion.
The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves, (List Price: $30, Del Rey, 9780593446591, July 2024)
Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia