elseship: an unrequited affair [Paperback]

“elseship is a kaleidoscopic exploration of all that can exist between two people caught in the middle of friendship and unrequited love. It’s a gorgeous and delicately rendered tapestry of desires—and a bracing examination of what happens when feelings break the boxes and labels meant to neatly contain them.” —Angela Chen, author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

When Tree Abraham falls in love with her housemate who does not reciprocate the feeling, instead of breaking up, they keep going. This story begins where most end. elseship deftly and courageously recounts the starts and stops of a transitioning relationship. Having recorded the experience in real time, Abraham combines personal entries with illustrations, photos, and mind maps all organized within eight ancient Greek categories of love.

For readers of Maggie Nelson, Sheila Heti, and Carmen Maria Machado, elseship deconstructs the heteronormative canon to explore the bittersweet, lonely, uncharted territories of the heart. It is a deeply specific yet universal story of modern love that will accompany and enlighten anyone who’s been in any kind of complicated “ship . Anyone who has ever found romance and friendship more alike than not will find a deep recognition in these gorgeous pages. —Ilana Masad, NPR

What to do with the missives of a manic, brilliant woman who can’t turn off her emotions? . . . . Abraham invokes a magnificent range of literary, cultural and scientific references to provide ballast for her richly detailed awakening into a love that was no less real for not being returned . . . The mixed media of elseship is as formally inventive as In the Dream House by Carmen Maria l6