Sam Savage

It Will End with Us

Hümanist Entel Serseri

Firmin

From letters and diary entries to grocery lists, this novel comprises a collection of everything Andrew Whittaker commits to paper over the course of four critical months. This tragicomic portrait of a literary life chronicles an aspiring novelist who is--quite literally--authoring his own downfall.

The Mostly Tragic Story of Andrew Whittaker Being His Collected, Final, and Absolutely Complete Writings

The Cry of the Sloth

A darkly comic rat's tale of exile, unrequited love and the redemptive power of books. This is a novel told through the voice of a rat. Firmin is born in the basement of a ramshackle old bookstore but because he is the runt of the litter, he is forced to compete for food and ends up chewing on the books that surround him. Firmin soon realizes his source of nourishment has endowed him with the ability to read and this discovery fills him with an insatiable hunger for literature and a very unratlike sense of the world and his place in it. As Firmin navigates the shadowy streets of his decaying area, looking for understanding, his excitement, loneliness, fear, and self-consciousness become remarkably human and undeniably touching. But the days of the bookshop and of the close community around it are numbered. The area has been marked out for 'urban regeneration' and soon the faded glory of the bookshop, the small local theatre, the unique shops and small cafes will face the bulldozers and urban planners. Brilliantly original and richly allegorical, Firmin is brimming with charm and wistful longing for a world that understands the redemptive power of literature and treasures its seedy theaters, one-of-a-kind characters, and cluttered bookshops.

Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife

F. Krahn

E. Santangelo

Firmino è un topo nato in una libreria di Boston negli anni Sessanta. È il tredicesimo cucciolo della nidiata, il più fragile e malaticcio. La mamma ha solo 12 mammelle e Firmino rimane l'unico escluso dal nutrimento. Scoraggiato, si accorge che deve inventarsi qualcosa per sopravvivere e comincia ad assaggiare i libri che ha intorno. Scopre che i libri più belli sono i più buoni. E diventa un vorace lettore, cominciando a identificarsi con i grandi eroi della letteratura di ogni tempo. In un finale di struggente malinconia, Firmino assiste alla distruzione della sua libreria ad opera delle ruspe per l'attuazione del nuovo piano edilizio.

avventure di un parassita metropolitano

Firmino

Sam Savage's final book is a collection of stripped down visitations, flash fictions of smoke breaks and long drives and friends who finally stop showing up. The acidic tang of disappointment is here, and sparks of biting insight, in portraits of people and animals, in all our absurdity and failed attempts at meaning. As Sam says, "what a life."

An Orphanage of Dreams

Сэм Сэвидж

"Это самая печальная история, из всех, каких я слыхивал" - с этой цитаты начинает рассказ о своей полной невзгод жизни Фирмин, последыш Мамы Фло, разродившейся тринадцатью крысятами в подвале книжного магазина на окраине Бостона 60-х годов

из жизни городских низов

Фирмин

Firmin is the runt of a litter of rats born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a ramshackle old bookstore run by the equally shambolic owner Norman Shine. Forced to compete for food, Firmin ends up chewing on the books that surround him. Thanks to his unusual diet, he acquires the miraculous ability to read. He subsequently develops an insatiable hunger for literature and a very unratlike sense of the world and his place in it. He is a debonair soul trapped in a rat's body¿ But a literary rat is a lonely rat and, spurned by his own kind, he thinks he recognises a kindred soul in Norman. Firmin seeks solace in the Lovelies of the local burlesque cinema and in his own imagination. But the days of the bookshop and of the close community around it are numbered. The area has been marked out for urban regeneration and soon the faded glory of the bookshop, the low-life bars, loan agencies and pawn shops will face the bulldozers. Brilliantly original and richly allegorical, Firmin is brimming with charm and wistful longing for a world that treasures its seedy theatres, one-of-a-kind characters, and cluttered bookshops.

I en boghandler i Boston, finder musen, Firmin mange forskellige bøger. Firmin begynder at læse bøgerne ved at spise og fordøje dem

mjarā'hā-yi yik shahr'nishīn-i ghurbatī

Firmīn

A slim but powerful poetic novel that tells the expansive story of a Southern woman’s memories of her mother and a vanishing world. 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. With the raw materials of language and remembrance, 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. “A wonderful, absorbing novel” (Atlantic Monthly) sculpted out of an “aphoristic scattering of memories—one- 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). 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. “Reading the novel can feel like admiring dewdrops on a spider’s web, each paragraph and sentence glittering exquisitely. . . . Savage’s 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.” —The New York Times Sunday Book Review “To call the book a novel, however, fails to acknowledge the poetry in its form.” —Carolina Quarterly “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 author’s skillful use of language, his vivid, poetically-charged prose style.” —Lively Arts

A Novel

"Sam Savage [creates] some of the most original, unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction. . . . Readers are left with a voice so strong that Savage is able to derive significance from these events by sheer literary force."--Kevin Larimer, Poets & Writers "Savage's skill is in creating complex first-person characters using nothing but their own voice."--Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times "[Savage] creates one of the most intriguing stories--and one of the most vivid characters--that this reader has encountered this year."--The Writer Sam Savage's most intimate, tender novel yet follows Harold Nivenson, a decrepit, aging man who was once a painter and arts patron. The death of Peter Meinenger, his friend turned romantic and intellectual rival, prompts him to ruminate on his own career as a minor artist and collector and make sense of a lifetime of gnawing doubt. Over time, his bitterness toward his family, his gentrifying neighborhood, and the decline of intelligent artistic discourse gives way to a kind of peace within himself, as he emerges from the shadow of the past and finds a reason to live, every day, in "the now." Sam Savage is the best-selling author of Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, The Cry of the Sloth, and Glass. A native of South Carolina, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University. He resides in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Way of the Dog

A widow, aging and alone, tells her side of the story in this “hilarious, poetic, and heartbreaking” meditation on memory (Hazel & Wren). Tasked with writing the preface to a reissue of her late husband’s long-out-of-print novel, Edna also finds herself taking care of a vacationing neighbor’s pet rat, an aquarium of fish, and an apartment full of potted plants. Sitting at her typewriter day after day, her mind drifts in a Proustian marathon of introspection. What eventually unfolds, as if by accident, is the story of a marriage and a portrait of a mind pushed to its limits. Is Edna’s preface an homage to her late husband or an act of belated revenge? Is she the cultured and sensitive victim of a crass and brutally ambitious husband? Or was Clarence the long-suffering caretaker of a neurotic and delusional wife? The unforgettable characters in Sam Savage’s two bestselling novels Firmin and The Cry of the Sloth garnered worldwide critical acclaim. In Glass, “a dazzling, graceful novel,” Savage once again creates a character simultaneously appealing and exasperating, comical and tragic (Star Tribune). “The book, while a skilled piece of storytelling, reads like a philosophical exploration . . . A fantastic experiment in perspective” (January Magazine, Best of 2011). “An engaging study of both the quirks and the depths of personality.” —Kirkus Reviews “Savage’s decision to use the point of view of an unreliable narrator will capture the attention of readers of literary fiction. The wry, bizarre humor will keep it.” —Booklist “Edna is hilarious, poetic, and heartbreaking, all without really trying to be. . . . The glimpses of her past life are so perfectly sculpted and are teeming with gorgeous language, and her humor that cuts them short is so precise and well-played.” —Hazel & Wren “Sam Savage’s exhilarating, often lilting use of language and his faultless characterization of the eccentric, unraveling of his main character, Edna, is evocative, poetic, and compelling.” —New York Journal of Books “An original and compelling book. Highly recommended” —Library Journal (starred review) “Readers are ultimately rewarded with a nearly voyeuristic pleasure, watching as this human life unfolds, reluctantly, in all its tragic splendor.” —BookPage

Sam Savage

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