Synopses & Reviews
Newsweek's Favorite Books of 2014
Praise for Sam Savage:
Sam Savage manages to be both artful and literal-minded in this faux autobiographical tale of childhood and a mother afflicted and finally driven mad by her wish for artistic success. Savage writes knowingly about the uncertainties of childhood memory, but creates a convincing world of sibling combat and adult pretension. A wonderful, absorbing novel.”C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic Monthly
If the worldall its hysteric noisewas muted for just one minute, Sam Savage is what you might be fortunate enough to hear. His elegant laconism, his leaps across the self-evident, his soft aplomb, and the rarified air he bestows upon the mundane make him the only American writer worthy of the label the true eccentric."Valeria Luiselli
It Will End With Us is Sam Savages latest deep dive into the mind and voice of a character, and his most personal work yet. Brick by textual brick, his narrator, Eve, builds a memorial to the mother who raised her, emotionally abandoned her, and shaped her in her own image. Eves memories summon a childhood in rural South Carolina, a decaying house on impoverished soil, and an insular society succumbing to the influences of a wider world. It Will End With Us is a portrait of a place full of hummingbirds and wild irises, but also of frustration and grief. It is the story of a family tragedy, provoked by a mothers stifled ambitions, and seized by the wide-open gaze of a child. Rarely has a novel so brief taken on so much, so powerfully.
Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan
Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, Glass, and The Way of the Dog, all from Coffee
House Press. A finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers
Award, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University and resides in
Madison, Wisconsin.
Review
Newsweek's Favorite Books of 2014 Included in Library Journals 25 Key Indie Fiction Titles, Fall 2014-Winter 2015"
"A Southern childhood in duskier, Tennessee Williams times, offering an aphoristic scattering of memoriesone- and two-sentence stand-alones that spill isolated down the page like little gems. . . showing us how memory works and how we make sense of our lives, drip by drip and sensation by sensation.”Library Journal
"Savages lean, meditative novels, so meticulously pitched and poised, eschew the bloated excess and garish dazzle that can mar those from writers half his age. . . In Savages novel, or Eves inventory of tiny things,” it is the small, fleeting and quiet details that speak volumes."Star Tribune
Sam Savage, once more, elicits our admiration and aesthetic appreciation for reminding us not to be complacent, and to interrogate what Eve terms the 'inner reaches'our inner selvesand what we believe, in a compact with others, to be the real world.”Numero Cinq
"A small book that tells a huge story about a Southern woman's memories of her mother and a vanishing world."Shelf Awareness
The narrative perfectly replicates the capriciousness of memory."AskMen.com
"A novel written in a most unusual way: a series of brief paragraphs which sometimes read like diary entries, other times like descriptions from a book of recollections. The mosaic effect is enhanced by the authors skillful use of language, his vivid, poetically-charged prose style."Lively Arts
"Savages stylistic movements around structure and prose helps texture this narrative and make the emotional vulnerability of Eve even more resonating. . . It Will End with Us is a beautiful portrait of a woman who attempts to recreate what she has left by meditating on images."Online Sundries
Reading the novel can feel like admiring dewdrops on a spiders web, each paragraph and sentence glittering exquisitely . . . Savages is a book of the heart as much as the head. Which is itself an accomplishment of no small note: to recognize the arbitrary, degraded thing that is memory, and allow it its loveliness for all of that.”New York Times Review of Books
"There's a vividness to these false memories; even those scraps battered 'beyond recognition' shine with a light of their own."Wisconsin State Journal
"To call the book a novel, however, fails to acknowledge the poetry in its form." Carolina Quarterly
Synopsis
A meditation on memory and futility among the ruins of artistic ambition, family myth, and the fall of the South.
Synopsis
Newsweek's Favorite Books of 2014
Praise for Sam Savage:
Winner of the O. Henry Prize for -Cigarettes-
-Sam Savage manages to be both artful and literal-minded in this faux autobiographical tale of childhood and a mother afflicted and finally driven mad by her wish for artistic success. Savage writes knowingly about the uncertainties of childhood memory, but creates a convincing world of sibling combat and adult pretension. A wonderful, absorbing novel.---C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic Monthly
-If the world--all its hysteric noise--was muted for just one minute, Sam Savage is what you might be fortunate enough to hear. His elegant laconism, his leaps across the self-evident, his soft aplomb, and the rarified air he bestows upon the mundane make him the only American writer worthy of the label the true eccentric.---Valeria Luiselli
It Will End With Us is Sam Savage's latest deep dive into the mind and voice of a character, and his most personal work yet. Brick by textual brick, his narrator, Eve, builds a memorial to the mother who raised her, emotionally abandoned her, and shaped her in her own image. Eve's memories summon a childhood in rural South Carolina, a decaying house on impoverished soil, and an insular society succumbing to the influences of a wider world. It Will End With Us is a portrait of a place full of hummingbirds and wild irises, but also of frustration and grief. It is the story of a family tragedy, provoked by a mother's stifled ambitions, and seized by the wide-open gaze of a child. Rarely has a novel so brief taken on so much, so powerfully.
Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan
Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, Glass, and The Way of the Dog, all from Coffee
House Press. A finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
Award, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University and resides in
Madison, Wisconsin.
Synopsis
Newsweek's Favorite Books of 2014
Praise for Sam Savage:
Winner of the O. Henry Prize for "Cigarettes"
"Sam Savage manages to be both artful and literal-minded in this faux autobiographical tale of childhood and a mother afflicted and finally driven mad by her wish for artistic success. Savage writes knowingly about the uncertainties of childhood memory, but creates a convincing world of sibling combat and adult pretension. A wonderful, absorbing novel."-C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic Monthly
"If the world-all its hysteric noise-was muted for just one minute, Sam Savage is what you might be fortunate enough to hear. His elegant laconism, his leaps across the self-evident, his soft aplomb, and the rarified air he bestows upon the mundane make him the only American writer worthy of the label the true eccentric."-Valeria Luiselli
It Will End With Us is Sam Savage's latest deep dive into the mind and voice of a character, and his most personal work yet. Brick by textual brick, his narrator, Eve, builds a memorial to the mother who raised her, emotionally abandoned her, and shaped her in her own image. Eve's memories summon a childhood in rural South Carolina, a decaying house on impoverished soil, and an insular society succumbing to the influences of a wider world. It Will End With Us is a portrait of a place full of hummingbirds and wild irises, but also of frustration and grief. It is the story of a family tragedy, provoked by a mother's stifled ambitions, and seized by the wide-open gaze of a child. Rarely has a novel so brief taken on so much, so powerfully.
Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, Glass, and The Way of the Dog, all from Coffee House Press. A finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University and resides in Madison, Wisconsin.
Synopsis
Praise for Sam Savage:
"With paragraphs as rich as koans, this is as powerful a meditation on living life—and facing its end—as you are likely to read anytime soon."—Booklist
"Stream-of-consciousness fiction with a satisfying emotional weight: another intriguing experiment in narrative voice from Savage."—Kirkus Reviews
It Will End with Us dismantles the mythic greats of the past—an American South that never was, and a mother's artistic pretensions that never should have been. Sam Savage captures both the frustrations of our degraded world and the tender sympathy it evokes for all our sad efforts to leave something beautiful behind.
Synopsis
Included in Library Journals 25 Key Indie Fiction Titles, Fall 2014-Winter 2015""With paragraphs as rich as koans, this is as powerful a meditation on living lifeand facing its endas you are likely to read anytime soon."Booklist
"Stream-of-consciousness fiction with a satisfying emotional weight: another intriguing experiment in narrative voice from Savage."Kirkus Reviews
"A Southern childhood in duskier, Tennessee Williams times, offering an aphoristic scattering of memoriesone- and two-sentence stand-alones that spill isolated down the page like little gems. . . showing us how memory works and how we make sense of our lives, drip by drip and sensation by sensation.”Library Journal
Sam Savage manages to be both artful and literal-minded in this faux autobiographical tale of childhood and a mother afflicted and finally driven mad by her wish for artistic success. Savage writes knowingly about the uncertainties of childhood memory, but creates a convincing world of sibling combat and adult pretension. A wonderful, absorbing novel.”C. Michael Curtis, Fiction Editor, The Atlantic Monthly
If the worldall its hysteric noisewas muted for just one minute, Sam Savage is what you might be fortunate enough to hear. His elegant laconism, his leaps across the self-evident, his soft aplomb, and the rarified air he bestows upon the mundane make him the only American writer worthy of the label the true eccentric."Valeria Luiselli
Savage's latest novel dismantles the mythic greats of the pastan American South that never was and a mother's artistic pretensions that never should have been. In the story of Eve, Savage finds a voice that captures both the frustrations of our degraded world and the tender sympathy it evokes for all our sad efforts to leave something beautiful behind.
About the Author
Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, Glass, and The Way of the Dog, all from Coffee House Press. A finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University and resides in Madison, Wisconsin.