Pamela Stewart is a self-described “literary proctologist,” and her writing often looks into places that people generally don’t want to look. The stories in Elysium are about the difficulties of life we all encounter as human beings, the fragility of life—the physical, mental, and spiritual challenges we must try to overcome. They are about ordinary people, characters searching for meaning. People are rescued, but not always in the way they hoped for or expected. Stewart’s work is character-driven and empathetic. Pamela Stewart spent twenty years as a private investigator, which gave her a special insight into human behaviour. “Because I spent so many years alone in a car watching people, my perspective on people is a bit different. I would watch someone for three or so days in a row, and in that time get a capsule version of their life, but it was skewed because I was part of their life, yet not part; they didn’t know I was in it,” she says. “Writing about people is kind of like that too.”