Ici, ailleurs

They erected the tower a few years before we bought the old man’s house. Since then, the village has slowly become deserted. Some inhabitants leave, others die, still others disappear into the forest. However, a few still linger – Fisher, the handyman who does nothing with his hands; Madeleine, the once sexy waitress; the grocer, who valiantly tries to sell his artichoke hearts – but those who remain don’t really want anything to do with us. It’s not a problem: we didn’t come here to get mixed up in their lives, but to forget. To find ourselves, perhaps. To begin anew. We came here so as not to be elsewhere. We may never leave. A novel about silence, tinged with the fantastic, Here and elsewhere describes the brutality of absence, sneaking into your memory and embracing you like a lover beneath ice cold sheets.