76 pages • 2 hours read
Gabrielle ZevinElsewhere
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2, Chapters 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Book of the Dead”
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary: “Arrivals”
Thandi’s job in Elsewhere involves broadcasting the names of those scheduled to arrive. One day, while looking over the latest list, she notices the name “Emily Welles.” Thandi immediately calls Liz, who in turn tells Owen about it. Regretfully, Owen says that while he does love Liz, he has a prior obligation to Emily. Although Liz is disappointed, she says she understands and assures him that they can remain friends.
After a passionate reunion at the pier, Owen takes Emily home. Almost immediately, she begins sneezing; Owen is skeptical of the idea that her symptoms are a remnant of the flu that killed her, explaining that he now has a dog. Emily hopes that in Elsewhere she’ll no longer be allergic, but as soon as she meets Jen it’s obvious that she is. This makes Jen uncomfortable as well, and Emily—agreeing that Jen has the prior claim—offers to stay somewhere else. Insistent that Emily remain, Owen drops Jen off with Liz, who swallows her own frustration to take care of her.
Back home, Owen asks Emily to fill him in on what’s happened on Earth. They begin to settle back into life together, although Emily decides to sleep on the couch because of their different schedules. Owen is largely in a state of happy disbelief, although he does find himself annoyed by certain habits of Emily’s that didn’t bother him before: “[A]nd sometimes they run out of stuff to talk about, because all they have in common is the past. So a lot of their conversations begin, ‘Do you remember that time...?’” (201).
When Liz stops by Owen’s house to retrieve one of Jen’s toys, she meets Emily for the first time. Later that night, as Liz cries, Betty proposes inviting Owen and Emily over for dinner. However, between Emily’s allergies and Liz’s silence, the evening doesn’t go well.
After Owen and Emily leave, Liz discovers that Jen—upset that Owen didn’t take her home—peed in her bed. Now furious, Liz shows up at Owen’s house to yell at him for abandoning Jen. Owen tries to calm her but also admits he doesn’t know how to handle the situation. The argument continues to escalate until the two finally kiss. When they break apart, they find that Emily has stumbled across them. She doesn’t seem upset, simply remarking that she’ll leave them alone, but Owen lashes out at Liz for “making [his] life so much harder” (206). Liz promises to keep looking after Jen and leaves.
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary: “The Sneaker Clause”
Aldous visits Liz at work one evening. He asks about Owen, and Liz bitterly explains the situation. Aldous then explains the reason for his visit: Liz has spent nearly a year in Elsewhere, and he needs to double-check that she doesn’t want to exercise the Sneaker Clause. To his dismay, Liz decides that she wants to.
Liz’s “Release” is scheduled for the anniversary of her death, but she doesn’t tell anyone about her plans except for Curtis. She insists that her decision isn’t simply because of Owen, but she admits that she wishes she could “be someone’s first”: “It sometimes feels that in this backward life, nothing that happens to me is ever new. Everything that happens has happened to someone else before. I feel like I’m getting everything secondhand” (210). Curtis tries to tell her that this is also true of life on Earth, and he warns her that he thinks she’s making a mistake. Irritated, Liz accuses Curtis of wasting his own life, but Curtis says he finds fishing fulfilling. Later that evening, Liz composes a short letter telling Betty where she has gone.
That same night, Emily asks Owen whether he’d like her to leave, and she admits that she would like to. He doesn’t answer directly, but he acknowledges that their relationship isn’t working; they still love one another, but both of them have changed. Emily urges Owen not to feel guilty about falling in love with someone else and not to waste time mourning their relationship, since they had a good life together on Earth. As Emily leaves, Owen’s tattoo aches and then disappears.
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary: “To Earth”
Arriving just before sunrise for her Release, Liz is dismayed to learn that she’ll have to be wrapped in the same swaddling clothes used for babies making the journey. The nurse in charge of wrapping her explains that she’ll drift along the River for about a week before reaching Earth, but also questions why she wants to return: “I mean, it’s all life, isn’t it? Why are you in such a rush to get back?” (218). The sun begins to rise, giving Liz no chance to respond.
Meanwhile, Curtis shows up at Liz’s house after a troubled night’s sleep. He has never met Betty before and is immediately infatuated, but he pulls himself together to explain why he’s come. Owen arrives at the same time, hoping to talk to Liz, and the trio piles into his car and drives to the River.
Liz, however, is already in the current, thinking about the life she’s leaving behind and beginning to wonder if she’s making a mistake. She tries to free herself from her wrappings, but she swallows a lot of water in the process and ends up sinking to the ocean floor.
Back on land, Owen decides to pursue Liz in his boat. Though they believe it’s too late, Betty and Curtis spend two days searching for Liz with him. Owen then returns them to shore, insisting on continuing the search alone for one more day. Back at Betty’s house, Curtis discovers the note Liz left. It says little about her reasons for leaving, so Curtis explains that in his estimation, Liz felt she had no chance of finding “lasting love” in Elsewhere (223)—though he suggests that this is a fact of existence anywhere.
Although she can't die in Elsewhere, Liz remains trapped on the ocean floor, unable to heal enough to make her way to the surface. Two mermaids come across her while she’s lying there helplessly, and they mock her before swimming away.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary: “At the Bottom of the Ocean, in the Land Between Elsewhere and Earth”
After two nights underwater, Liz wakes up to a ticking sound and something silver floating above her. Believing it to be her pocket watch, she struggles to free herself from the rest of her wrappings and then follows the silver light to the surface, where she finds Owen’s tugboat.
Owen quickly pulls her on board and wraps her in a blanket. After informing him that she’s still angry with him, Liz remarks that she wants to learn to drive a boat, and she asks who taught Owen. Owen says it was his grandfather, who just retired from his job in Elsewhere, and Liz realizes he’s talking about the captain of the SS Nile.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary: “Restoration”
Liz spends the next two weeks resting and recovering in a healing center, where her visitors include Aldous and Curtis. The latter wants to know if Liz thinks Betty might agree to go out with him; though initially surprised, Liz is supportive of his plan to compose a song for her.
When Curtis eventually stops by Betty’s house, Liz has returned and is resting in the hammock while Betty gardens. Acting on prior advice, Curtis compliments Betty on her garden, but he leaves disappointed when Betty explains that she was just about to go inside. Once alone with Betty, Liz explains Curtis’s interest in her and urges her to at least consider him. About a week later, Curtis shows up in the middle of the night and serenades Betty from the garden outside the house: “The lyrics are (it must be said) rather trite, mainly about the transformative powers of love. In truth, most love songs are exactly the same way” (233).
Meanwhile, Owen is spending much of his free time with Liz. During one such visit, Liz explains that she swam to the surface in pursuit of her pocket watch; when Owen returns the next day, he has brought her a dainty gold wristwatch. Jen visits later the same day, explaining that she helped choose the watch. She also thanks Liz for taking care of her after Emily’s arrival, and she has entirely forgiven Owen: “[W]hen you love a person, you have to forgive him sometimes” (235). Liz soon follows suit, determined not to waste any more time.
Part 2, Chapters 16-20 Analysis
Liz’s attempted Release and ultimate rescue comes at the climax of the novel, and effectively completes the character arc that begins with her death. Prior to her Release, Liz had settled into a daily routine, but her embrace of life in Elsewhere wasn’t as complete as it might have appeared. In particular, she still struggled with the sense that she had less control over the course of her life than she would have had on Earth, in part because (as she tells Curtis) the nature of existence on Elsewhere seems particularly “predetermined” (211): people know from the start exactly how many years they will spend there, and their lives there are often shaped by events and relationships from their prior earthly existence.
As with so much in the novel, most of this is equally true of life on Earth; the abrupt and random nature of Liz’s death is itself a testament to the fact that much of human experience lies beyond any individual person’s control. Nevertheless, it’s a difficult truth to accept, and Emily’s arrival on Elsewhere and the consequent disruption of Liz’s relationship with Owen bring it back to the forefront of Liz’s mind: “Somehow this whole experience with Owen and Emily has made her feel entirely exhausted and pessimistic. What is the point of loving anyone? […] In fifteen years (less, actually), she would just forget everything anyway” (209). This sense that nothing she does or tries to do on Elsewhere matters is what prompts Liz’s decision to return to Earth.
What Liz fails to appreciate until she is actually in the River is that, while she might not be able to control the course of her life, she can control the way she responds to it. In her farewell note to Betty, one of the rationales she offers for her decision is that it isn’t a decision at all; Liz writes, “I’m sorry it has to be this way” (212), implying that she has no choice but to return to Earth. However, once Liz is at the mercy of the River’s current—that is, once she truly seems to have no choice—she comes to see her earlier belief as misguided: “With or without Owen, almost fifteen years was a long time. Almost fifteen years was a gift” (220). Implicit in this passage is Liz’s recognition that she isn’t as powerless as she had thought: if nothing else, she can choose to appreciate the time she has in Elsewhere, regardless of how her relationship with Owen unfolds.
This isn’t to say that that relationship is unimportant, however. Having made the decision to return to Elsewhere, Liz inadvertently ends up trapped on the ocean floor, and she likely would have stayed there if she hadn’t noticed Owen’s boat floating above her; it’s this sight that gives Liz the strength to swim back up to the surface. Liz doesn’t know what she’s seeing at the time, but the fact that she mistakes the bottom of his boat for her pocket watch is significant; Liz’s watch symbolizes many things over the course of the novel, but its engraving—two lovers on a boat—ties it especially closely to Liz and Owen’s relationship. In other words, as Liz lies in a death-like state at the bottom of the ocean, and it’s love that brings her back to life.
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