Some Place Quite Unknown is a novel written as a memoir about a woman of middle age suddenlythrown into a psychological crisis. It is a novel about stories – the different ways we tell them – by writing them, in psychoanalysis, in dreams – how we tell them to each other and keep them secret, how we forget them, remember them, use them, imagine them into fiction, use them to understand our lives and the lives of those close to us.
“Some Place Quite Unknown is as intimate and urgent as a confessional poem. Lazarre’s enraptured and lyrical prose probes, with admirable rigor and dazzling artistry, the deepest places of a woman’s heart. This is a powerful and original work.”
Jaime Manrique
“A beautiful, profound and original novel…I could delve into it over and over and each time be freshly rewarded…Lazarre’s prose is stunning, as lyrical and metaphoric as it is multifaceted, and the journey of following her intricate interweaving of ideas and storytelling is akin to reading The Golden Notebook or Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins…This is a contemporary classic.”
Marnie Mueller
“…as intimate as a memoir, as beautifully worded as a piece of poetry – looks like a quiet book on the surface, but it’s much more. It’s a whisper that leaves the main character Celia’s throat and grabs hold of the reader’s.”
Rain Taxi
“…Deliberate in its interweaving of narrative, dream and a questing, questioning first person voice, Lazarre’s latest novel delves into the nature of the mind, adaptive amnesia, the dioramas of therapy, and the importance of personal history. . . a deeply moving story. . . ”
Gently Read Literature