elseship: an unrequited affair by Tree Abraham

What is “elseship”? The subtitle starts to give it away: an unrequited affair. Except the relationship Abraham recounts in this deeply sensitive and revealing multi-media memoir is somewhere between requited and unrequited. It is not sexually consummated, true, and confessions of being in-love go in one direction, but tremendous intimacies are shared over an extended period. The affair is not brief, it is often mutually rewarding, though not mutually fulfilling.

As this review struggles to find the language to describe the book, so Abraham and her partner-not-partner struggled to live out whatever it was that bound them. They shared an intense mutual curiosity, but Abraham wanted more, which was not offered. The book consists of Abraham’s analysis of their time together, organizing the narrative using the eight categories of love in ancient Greece: agape, philautia, ludus, philia, eros, mania, pragma, and storge. Readers will easily conclude that love is hard, complicated, endlessly interesting, and well worth the effort, except it often hurts.

The pair met as roommates, and they continue to live together (with others) after Abraham’s confession of love. The lovesickness came in classic fashion, delivered by a lightening bolt, but little else follows the Disney heteronormative pattern. The shock to her system is unlike anything Abraham has experienced before, and she wonders if she will ever experience anything like it again. Especially, she notes, because the love bloomed out of the roommate trust they’d initially established. Does Abraham need to live with someone first before she can fall in love? She charts her heart with precision, but mysteries remain.

What is “elseship”? Something more than friendship and less than being a couple.

The multi-media elements of the book include drawings, photographs, diagrams, shifting font colours and sizes. The book has a scrapbook feeling, which increases the sense that the reader is accessing an intimate space. Lovelorn pronouncements repeat from cover to cover. “A part of you now viscera, wedged in me so that I cannot compute without my neurons having to run along your form.” A critical analysis of codependency is perhaps missing. Abraham was destabilized by the experience, it’s evident, and the book is, in part, an attempt to reestablish balance, right-size the encounter.

What is “elseship”? Something more than friendship and less than being a couple. It happened because Abraham and her beloved decided to stay connected and explore what they could be for each other. They were both women. They were never lovers. Their friends often didn’t know what to do with them, how to advise them, but they saw whatever was going on was special. Abraham has written expansively about their connection and revealed her own capacity for immense sensitivity. This work is a remarkable achievement and a strong addition to the literature of love.

TREE ABRAHAM is an Ottawa-born, Brooklyn-based writer, art director, and book designer. Her works experiment with collaged essay and mixed media visuals. She is also the author of the creative nonfiction book Cyclettes.

Publisher: Book*hug Press (April 15, 2025)
Shipping dimensions: 8″x 6″ 280 pp
ISBN: 9781771669375

Michael Bryson

Michael Bryson has been reviewing books since the 1990s in publications such as The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Paragraph Magazine, Id Magazine, and Quill & Quire. His short story collections include Thirteen Shades of Black and White (1999) and The Lizard and Other Stories (2009). His fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and other anthologies. His story Survival is available as a Kindle single. From 1999-2018, he oversaw 78 issues of fiction, poetry, reviews, author interviews, essays, and other features at The Danforth Review. He lives in Scarborough, Ontario, and blogs at Art/Life: Scribblings.