Essays from Somewhere Else includes four essays: “The Egg Factory,” “Not a Crier,” “Why I Hate Driving,” and “Permanent Someone: A Love Story.” This work of creative nonfiction includes essays linked in theme: the narrator looking back at moments in her past where someone—men, her mother, her best friend, herself—inflicted damage upon her in some way. She hopes to make meaning of those moments now that she is far removed in time and space from those situations. Each essay grapples with a different question and includes scenes that have stuck with the author throughout her experience as a writer and person—issues of family, death, friendship, abuse, and love.