Anywhere Else

“Anywhere Else is a wild ride of an essay collection, and Rachel Knox is the ideal guide, taking readers beyond the glossy postcard image of Florida to a deeper, truer, and far stranger place. Equal parts cultural critique and love letter, this book is a gift: smart, funny, and brimming with stories only a local can tell. Anywhere Else establishes Knox as one of Florida’s compelling new voices.”—Edgar Gomez, author of Alligator Tears

“With a distinctly Floridian sense of humor and the sharp, affectionate eye of a true native, Knox explores what it means to come from a place that’s part paradise and part cautionary tale. Anywhere Else captures the strange ache of loving somewhere everyone else loves to mock, and how that devotion alters the lens through which you understand the world around you.”—Eleanor Kriseman, author of The Blurry Years

“Raw, compelling, and informative. A fantastic, whirlwind voyage into Knox’s lifelong fascination with Florida. Knox’s stories are accessible and binge-readable, and I loved that I walked away learning something from each one.”—Gabrielle Calise, editor of Florida! A Hyper-local Guide to the Flora, Fauna, and Fantasy of the Most Far-out State in America

“Rachel Knox is a knock-out writer. In Anywhere Else, the Florida woman writes prismatically about herself and her home state—its complicated history, media depiction, and humanity. Knox approaches her subjects in a way that’s both sharp and soft. This book is really, really good.”—Tyler Gillespie, author of The Thing about Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State

“Rachel Knox charts her own life through the history and culture of Florida, a place that is a part of her story like the python is now part of the Everglades: invasive and inextricable. In these stylishly written and carefully structured pieces, she comes to an understanding of herself as both formed and consumed by the sand dunes and swamps.”—Shane Hinton, author of Other Shane Hintons

“You don’t have to be from Florida, or even want to go there, to be moved by this book. You just have to have a hometown and know what it feels like to leave it, only to discover it’ll never leave you.”—Southern Bookseller Review