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Blueberries
‘I mean who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breath.’
The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage.
In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest.
She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, re-read the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.
The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage.
In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest.
She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, re-read the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2020
420 people are currently reading
26778 people want to read
About the author
Ellena Savage
11 books66 followersEllena Savage is an Australian author and academic. She is the author of the chapbook Yellow City (The Atlas Review, 2019) and numerous essays, stories, and poems published in literary journals internationally. Ellena is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including most recently the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship 2019–2021. She lives in Athens, Greece, with her husband, Dominic Amerena.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 499 reviews
April 9, 2020
Very clever, but probably too clever for my taste. Strip away the genre-defying format everyone is raving about and what’s left doesn’t feel all that exciting to me: possibly because I am of a similar age and live/work in the same Melbourne suburbs as the author, and have similar creative friends who are all having similar conversations about similar ideas of class and gender and art and travel and power. I feel like I’ve just read a transcript of a house party where everyone had more degrees than I do, and they wanted me to know it.
November 24, 2022
Let’s start with the positives. Some of the essays in this collection are quite good. Houses and Holidays with Men could easily stand alone. I liked Satellites too. The trouble with this book is that, taken together, the collection reeks of a tone-deaf white feminism. We have entry after entry that highlight cishet male privilege and the travails of an educated white middle class Australian woman. That’s all fine and good, and certainly worth writing about, but without any sort of acknowledgment of privilege or a recognition of a life lived in the wake of white-settler colonialism, the collection as a whole leaves a rather unpleasant aftertaste. Sort of like a stew that’s missing a key ingredient. It’s something I would have expected to read in 2002 instead of 2022.
March 21, 2021
Blueberries opens with ‘Yellow City’, an essay describing the author’s return to Lisbon a decade after being sexually assaulted there. Having left the country before her attackers’ trial, Savage returns seeking details of the outcome (ie, court transcripts) in an effort which blends her recalled trauma with the banality of bureaucracy. This is a superb piece of self-reportage, disarming in its frankness and perspicacity.
The rest of this collection does not live up to the high standard set by ‘Yellow City’, and Savage’s choice of subject matter for the remaining essays—mainly, the lifestyle of a young, itinerant-by-choice aspiring writer—was not, for me personally, all that engaging.
For some reason, the passage above has stuck in my brain as being emblematic of this whole collection (‘Yellow City’ excluded). Routine home repair is bourgeois; getting a handyman in is bourgeois; I don’t know what, if anything, else I’m supposed to take away from this little nugget about cabinets. And even as the topics vary, namedropping Marx and Adorno, quoting Anne Carson… all of it provokes in me the same (muted) intellectual and emotional response as the cabinets do.
While Blueberries as a whole didn’t really float my boat, ‘Yellow City’ is proof that with a compelling topic and a tight focus, Savage can deliver the goods, so I’ll being keeping an eye out for her work in future.
The rest of this collection does not live up to the high standard set by ‘Yellow City’, and Savage’s choice of subject matter for the remaining essays—mainly, the lifestyle of a young, itinerant-by-choice aspiring writer—was not, for me personally, all that engaging.
‘None of the cabinets in the apartment have door knobs yet—I bought a box of them, they arrived the other day, but the screws are all the wrong lengths and I don’t know how to trim them, or even what tool I will need. This is probably the most bourgeois problem I’ve ever had. But I’m not bourgeois enough (yet?) to hire a person to work it out for me.’
For some reason, the passage above has stuck in my brain as being emblematic of this whole collection (‘Yellow City’ excluded). Routine home repair is bourgeois; getting a handyman in is bourgeois; I don’t know what, if anything, else I’m supposed to take away from this little nugget about cabinets. And even as the topics vary, namedropping Marx and Adorno, quoting Anne Carson… all of it provokes in me the same (muted) intellectual and emotional response as the cabinets do.
While Blueberries as a whole didn’t really float my boat, ‘Yellow City’ is proof that with a compelling topic and a tight focus, Savage can deliver the goods, so I’ll being keeping an eye out for her work in future.
May 30, 2022
Mmmmm mwah !!! Chefs kiss mhm mhm mhm. This collection of essays — or should I say short stories or prose or maybe some of the most inventive writing I’ve ever laid my eyes upon — was delectable mm mm good !!!!! This quite literally rewired my brain in the best way possible like Savage is redefining literature.
This is the kinda book you have to space out over a couple of days, or for me a couple of weeks, to fully indulge in it. Every chapter is a brand new (or scarily similar) outlook on life, whether the topic be abortion, writing, or growing pains. You’ve got to sit there and think about what Savage just wrote after each chapter, like I had to go back and reread some multiple times so I could form my own opinion on it. She often writes in tangents, something that was a bit difficult for me to get comfortable with until a few rereads, but I came to love the puzzle Savage set in front of me so I could to try to piece her points together.
This is just incredibly stunning. Praises to Ellena Savage for creating a couple of masterpieces !! Some hit more than others, which is why I’m rating it four stars. Nonetheless, still delicious. My brain is not capable of expressing how cool this was. Read it!
This is the kinda book you have to space out over a couple of days, or for me a couple of weeks, to fully indulge in it. Every chapter is a brand new (or scarily similar) outlook on life, whether the topic be abortion, writing, or growing pains. You’ve got to sit there and think about what Savage just wrote after each chapter, like I had to go back and reread some multiple times so I could form my own opinion on it. She often writes in tangents, something that was a bit difficult for me to get comfortable with until a few rereads, but I came to love the puzzle Savage set in front of me so I could to try to piece her points together.
This is just incredibly stunning. Praises to Ellena Savage for creating a couple of masterpieces !! Some hit more than others, which is why I’m rating it four stars. Nonetheless, still delicious. My brain is not capable of expressing how cool this was. Read it!
March 20, 2020
This is an astonishing collection: smart (so smart), confident, critical (and self-critical), funny and angry. It's about writing and being a writer, but so, so much more. I'm in awe. Will come back and read again - it's just such rich and thoughtful work.
August 7, 2021
Calling it at page 182.
Reading this like being at a house party with a bunch of people I’d never hang out with. I found it more ramshackle than experimental.
I read a lot of essay collections and found this to be another young writer casting about for meaning, touching on trendy topics, and banging out a lot of words in search of something to actually say.
Reading this like being at a house party with a bunch of people I’d never hang out with. I found it more ramshackle than experimental.
I read a lot of essay collections and found this to be another young writer casting about for meaning, touching on trendy topics, and banging out a lot of words in search of something to actually say.
April 10, 2021
Without being too disparaging, I felt this was a fine, but not great collection of essays. It starts off with a bang with "Yellow City" which describes Savage's return to Lisbon, where years earlier she was a victim of a sexual assault. This essay demonstrated her considerable potential to write insightfully, and movingly around difficult content. I didn't feel this potential was carried well through the rest of the collection. Although Savage repeatedly acknowledges her privilege, her essays foregrounded largely bourgeois concerns, dancing around the more meaningful and challenging ideas she could have interrogated. Ultimately, the remaining essays failed to move, or engage me on any substantial level. Would I read Savage again? Probably, because I think she has what it takes, it just wasn't quite realised here.
May 24, 2022
3.5*
Really loved some ideas and essays, and the experimental writing styles, but overall it was another pretentious privileged person writing about writing. I simultaneously loved it and then would feel like I was at a uni flat party 5 mins later with a bunch of drunk students who'd just learned about socialism, so idk. my opinion is constantly yoyo-ing
Really loved some ideas and essays, and the experimental writing styles, but overall it was another pretentious privileged person writing about writing. I simultaneously loved it and then would feel like I was at a uni flat party 5 mins later with a bunch of drunk students who'd just learned about socialism, so idk. my opinion is constantly yoyo-ing
July 18, 2020
What does she have against commas?
January 26, 2023
I found this book to be very basic, and a disappointment. The reviews raved about it, and everyone seemed to be talking about it. This was not a case of merit, but the white, settler-led Australian literary establishment doing what it does best: applauding without analysis.
What good insights there could have been were off-set by the heavy-handed tone throughout the book, of an inward-facing, privileged white woman unaware of the facets or implications of her own privilege. The depth reviews talked about so much, I could not find. It was shallow, and boring. What could have been powerful and a strong collection of essays was watered down considerably by what seemed to be a total lack of awareness of anything beyond the author's own scope. To write about the inner self is good, and when done well, can be powerful writing. But when it turns to this self-centered form of focus at the expense of all else, one does not find the same strength.
I'm sure many did find fruit within this collection of essays. But I am not white; nor do I possess the ability to shut out the rest of the world that the author seems to have, and so I found it lacking, and somewhat juvenile.
What good insights there could have been were off-set by the heavy-handed tone throughout the book, of an inward-facing, privileged white woman unaware of the facets or implications of her own privilege. The depth reviews talked about so much, I could not find. It was shallow, and boring. What could have been powerful and a strong collection of essays was watered down considerably by what seemed to be a total lack of awareness of anything beyond the author's own scope. To write about the inner self is good, and when done well, can be powerful writing. But when it turns to this self-centered form of focus at the expense of all else, one does not find the same strength.
I'm sure many did find fruit within this collection of essays. But I am not white; nor do I possess the ability to shut out the rest of the world that the author seems to have, and so I found it lacking, and somewhat juvenile.
April 4, 2020
A strong collection of personal essays focusing on topics including relationships, home and the female body as well as the art of writing itself. This collection reads quickly but (as is often the case with collections of essays) these would be better read individually in order for the reader to fully process the content and get the most out of them.
The first essay (Yellow City) was the best in my view, but there aren't really any weak ones in this collection. Recommended!
Thank you Netgalley and Scribe UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
The first essay (Yellow City) was the best in my view, but there aren't really any weak ones in this collection. Recommended!
Thank you Netgalley and Scribe UK for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
March 25, 2021
Bookseller Jaclyn Crupi referred to Ellena Savage as "Australia's Rebecca Solnit" and I think the comparison is appropriate - she tends to focus on feminist and political themes, is well-researched, but doesn't write from egotistical point of view that I sometimes feel essayists do. She also experiments with form a little more than Solnit.
Like many collections of essays or stories, I would rate each one of these differently, but the first essay, "Yellow City," is worth it entirely in my opinion.
I read this a little ahead of the Australia/NZ month for #readtheworld21 so I'm just reviewing it here and will post to Instagram in April.
I had a copy from the publisher through NetGalley, and it came out in the United States on March 3, 2021.
Like many collections of essays or stories, I would rate each one of these differently, but the first essay, "Yellow City," is worth it entirely in my opinion.
I read this a little ahead of the Australia/NZ month for #readtheworld21 so I'm just reviewing it here and will post to Instagram in April.
I had a copy from the publisher through NetGalley, and it came out in the United States on March 3, 2021.
March 20, 2020
the act of reading this book felt like writing. I waited a long time to read it and I am happy.
January 14, 2024
READING VLOG
Feels like that one chic chick at the balcony of a house party that you want to talk to, but when you do get the chance to talk to her at brunch the day after with all of your friends and when she opens her mouth, smart stuff comes out. Funny stuff. Over-generalized stuff. She says things like, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯 and 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘺. But then she'll say something funny again. Something meaningful. Something beautiful even. And you look out at the sun and how it dips into a burnt orange as the afternoon is waning out and the bill comes and she darts a nervous glance. Looks to someone else. Asks if she can Venmo them. And, of course, we don't put up a fight. Because she talks like a friend. Is she a friend?
In this imaginary friend group, I walk one of them home.
Me: What does she do? That one chic chick.
Friend: She's a writer. But she doesn't really write. She talks. Like she writes like she talks. And then complains about it.
Me: Complains?
Friend: Like she writes and then complains about writing. I think because writing is somehow linked to capitalism. She doesn't want to work.
Me: Well, who wants to work?
Friend: I guess what I mean is she doesn't like to 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯 the work. She likes to whine about it. That's all. I still like her though.
Me: Me too. I like her too.
𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. A kind of judgement passed in between belief and doubt, registering some shift in the day, some shift in thought. But it was just twilight closing the day for a next one. Not a 𝘯𝘦𝘸 day. A 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 day.
Feels like that one chic chick at the balcony of a house party that you want to talk to, but when you do get the chance to talk to her at brunch the day after with all of your friends and when she opens her mouth, smart stuff comes out. Funny stuff. Over-generalized stuff. She says things like, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯 and 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘺. But then she'll say something funny again. Something meaningful. Something beautiful even. And you look out at the sun and how it dips into a burnt orange as the afternoon is waning out and the bill comes and she darts a nervous glance. Looks to someone else. Asks if she can Venmo them. And, of course, we don't put up a fight. Because she talks like a friend. Is she a friend?
In this imaginary friend group, I walk one of them home.
Me: What does she do? That one chic chick.
Friend: She's a writer. But she doesn't really write. She talks. Like she writes like she talks. And then complains about it.
Me: Complains?
Friend: Like she writes and then complains about writing. I think because writing is somehow linked to capitalism. She doesn't want to work.
Me: Well, who wants to work?
Friend: I guess what I mean is she doesn't like to 𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯 the work. She likes to whine about it. That's all. I still like her though.
Me: Me too. I like her too.
𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. A kind of judgement passed in between belief and doubt, registering some shift in the day, some shift in thought. But it was just twilight closing the day for a next one. Not a 𝘯𝘦𝘸 day. A 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 day.
Read
June 1, 2020Once I started reading Blueberries, I found it almost impossible to put down. It’s fascinating to watch Ellena Savage’s mind at work in this book — her essays unfurl, expand and dance in unexpected and satisfying ways. This is a masterful, fearless book in which strength and vulnerability collide.
Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else
A breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression … Blueberries is exciting and distinctive. STARRED REVIEW
Books+Publishing
Savage navigates delicate and difficult terrain with wit, ruthless scrutiny and painfully sharp analysis … If Yellow City is any indication, Blueberries will be one of the most exciting debuts of the new year.
Overland
The 15 essays contained here wear various guises, from experimental prose to poetry, memoir to polemic to cultural critique. … Savage’s idealism and eloquence are a much-needed counterbalance to our by-now-threadbare belief that all the hard questions of how to order our world have been answered, that everything unsettling such certainty is a glitch, to be soldered onto the technocratic motherboard and run through the circuits of the polity. Blueberries is an adamant and unruly book. It is also the most exciting work of creative nonfiction to be published in this country since Maria Tumarkin took up the pen.
Geordie Williamson, The Australian
In fifteen works, Savage blends memoir, personal essay, stream of consciousness, journalism, and prose poetry to interrogate the messy and fragmented life of a writer, a woman, and a body … A masterclass in experimental nonfiction…Savage is fiercely intelligent and manages to inject dry humour into even the most serious topics, creating a delicate balance between dire existentialism and life-affirming joy. By questioning the very nature of memoir itself, Savage breathes new life into the non-fiction form and considers what it means to be alive in today’s uncertain world.
Chloë Cooper, Kill Your Darlings
Savage plays with form like a poet, and excavates the roots of her experience with an impressive generosity and fierce intelligence that mirror her mentor, Maria Tumarkin … Fans of Tumarkin and Jia Tolentino should hunt this down … and luxuriate in a recent past where whiplash-inducing international travel was an option.
Jo Case, InDaily
[F]or fans of the understated yet insightful prose of Rachel Cusk and Sally Rooney … Wrestling with the intricacies of memory, identity, class and trauma, [Blueberries] sees Savage contemplate her past with unflinching clarity … Take it to your next book club.
Elle Australia ‘Book of the Month’
Ellena Savage has produced a collection that defies categorisation but is fervently experiential, candid and original.
Readings Monthly
For fans of Maria Tumarkin, Kathy Acker and Maggie Nelson, Blueberries marks Savage as an experimental writer and essayist to watch.
Adelaide Review
Blueberries asks piercing questions about power, desire, and violence. The essays explore what it means to be an artist, a body, a woman, a friend, a lover, a daughter – and how these roles intersect with systems of oppression. Each essay has its own form and process, but in each one Savage focuses her sharply analytic eye on the world she moves through – as well as on herself.
Caitlin McGregor, Australian Book Review
The essays display a fiercely intelligent mind that blends the personal with polemic ... It is original, forthright and will have you challenging your own views and assumptions. 4.5 STARS
Melinda Woledge, Good Reading
Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else
A breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression … Blueberries is exciting and distinctive. STARRED REVIEW
Books+Publishing
Savage navigates delicate and difficult terrain with wit, ruthless scrutiny and painfully sharp analysis … If Yellow City is any indication, Blueberries will be one of the most exciting debuts of the new year.
Overland
The 15 essays contained here wear various guises, from experimental prose to poetry, memoir to polemic to cultural critique. … Savage’s idealism and eloquence are a much-needed counterbalance to our by-now-threadbare belief that all the hard questions of how to order our world have been answered, that everything unsettling such certainty is a glitch, to be soldered onto the technocratic motherboard and run through the circuits of the polity. Blueberries is an adamant and unruly book. It is also the most exciting work of creative nonfiction to be published in this country since Maria Tumarkin took up the pen.
Geordie Williamson, The Australian
In fifteen works, Savage blends memoir, personal essay, stream of consciousness, journalism, and prose poetry to interrogate the messy and fragmented life of a writer, a woman, and a body … A masterclass in experimental nonfiction…Savage is fiercely intelligent and manages to inject dry humour into even the most serious topics, creating a delicate balance between dire existentialism and life-affirming joy. By questioning the very nature of memoir itself, Savage breathes new life into the non-fiction form and considers what it means to be alive in today’s uncertain world.
Chloë Cooper, Kill Your Darlings
Savage plays with form like a poet, and excavates the roots of her experience with an impressive generosity and fierce intelligence that mirror her mentor, Maria Tumarkin … Fans of Tumarkin and Jia Tolentino should hunt this down … and luxuriate in a recent past where whiplash-inducing international travel was an option.
Jo Case, InDaily
[F]or fans of the understated yet insightful prose of Rachel Cusk and Sally Rooney … Wrestling with the intricacies of memory, identity, class and trauma, [Blueberries] sees Savage contemplate her past with unflinching clarity … Take it to your next book club.
Elle Australia ‘Book of the Month’
Ellena Savage has produced a collection that defies categorisation but is fervently experiential, candid and original.
Readings Monthly
For fans of Maria Tumarkin, Kathy Acker and Maggie Nelson, Blueberries marks Savage as an experimental writer and essayist to watch.
Adelaide Review
Blueberries asks piercing questions about power, desire, and violence. The essays explore what it means to be an artist, a body, a woman, a friend, a lover, a daughter – and how these roles intersect with systems of oppression. Each essay has its own form and process, but in each one Savage focuses her sharply analytic eye on the world she moves through – as well as on herself.
Caitlin McGregor, Australian Book Review
The essays display a fiercely intelligent mind that blends the personal with polemic ... It is original, forthright and will have you challenging your own views and assumptions. 4.5 STARS
Melinda Woledge, Good Reading
March 31, 2020
“Writing in the first person is writing that admits that experience is always truncated,” writes Ellena Savage. The Melbourne-bred, Athens-based writer is powerfully self-aware in her debut essay collection, which marries cultural criticism with personal experience to both inhabit and deconstruct the memoir form.
Some essays have been published before – the excoriating “Yellow City” was released as a chapbook by The Atlas Review in 2019, and an early version of “Turning Thirty” appeared in The Lifted Brow. “Holidays with Men” encapsulates Savage’s idiosyncratic style – in two columns, it features a piece Savage wrote during university about her romantic experiences alongside present-day commentary, sharing the knowledge she’s gleaned over time about gender relations.
Other essays similarly see Savage in dialogue with herself, questioning the veracity of memory and the limitations of the written word. She is a playful, daring writer with a flagrant disregard for convention – sentences run into each other, tenses fluctuate, pieces move from poetry to prose and back again. Like the American writer Jia Tolentino, Savage gives equal weight to both “high” and “low” culture and concepts, discussing cultural theorists as well as cheesy ’90s films. Though her academic language may isolate some, there is little feeling of snobbery here – simply a curious mind at constant work.
Privilege is an overarching theme, particularly in the excellent title essay, which explores the class problem in the arts. Savage delicately walks the line between knowledge of the self and knowledge of power systems, acknowledging her fortune in being able to attend a “very expensive writers’ workshop” in the United States while also recognising the performativity of progressive politics in these spaces. In “Houses” she muses on the 22 places she has called home, and the transience that marks the millennial condition.
Much of the book revolves around writing as work. This can often be tiresome to those outside the profession, but here it’s compelling, challenging reading. Savage makes it feel like a hall of mirrors – reflective yet distorted; hyperreal – and, for her, writing seems to be an act of evolution and constant learning.
Defying categorisation, Blueberries is unlike much else in Australian writing at the moment, and heralds Savage as a major new voice in experimental nonfiction.
(Review originally published in The Saturday Paper)
Some essays have been published before – the excoriating “Yellow City” was released as a chapbook by The Atlas Review in 2019, and an early version of “Turning Thirty” appeared in The Lifted Brow. “Holidays with Men” encapsulates Savage’s idiosyncratic style – in two columns, it features a piece Savage wrote during university about her romantic experiences alongside present-day commentary, sharing the knowledge she’s gleaned over time about gender relations.
Other essays similarly see Savage in dialogue with herself, questioning the veracity of memory and the limitations of the written word. She is a playful, daring writer with a flagrant disregard for convention – sentences run into each other, tenses fluctuate, pieces move from poetry to prose and back again. Like the American writer Jia Tolentino, Savage gives equal weight to both “high” and “low” culture and concepts, discussing cultural theorists as well as cheesy ’90s films. Though her academic language may isolate some, there is little feeling of snobbery here – simply a curious mind at constant work.
Privilege is an overarching theme, particularly in the excellent title essay, which explores the class problem in the arts. Savage delicately walks the line between knowledge of the self and knowledge of power systems, acknowledging her fortune in being able to attend a “very expensive writers’ workshop” in the United States while also recognising the performativity of progressive politics in these spaces. In “Houses” she muses on the 22 places she has called home, and the transience that marks the millennial condition.
Much of the book revolves around writing as work. This can often be tiresome to those outside the profession, but here it’s compelling, challenging reading. Savage makes it feel like a hall of mirrors – reflective yet distorted; hyperreal – and, for her, writing seems to be an act of evolution and constant learning.
Defying categorisation, Blueberries is unlike much else in Australian writing at the moment, and heralds Savage as a major new voice in experimental nonfiction.
(Review originally published in The Saturday Paper)
Read
June 18, 2021The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of Blueberries
‘Reading Ellena Savage’s Blueberries engaged me completely. Savage’s sparkling writing is bold, witty, insightful, fearless and funny. It emerges from an astute mind at odds with itself, with culture and society. Savage wrestles and plays with received ideas of all kinds, and with what has and hasn’t shaped her. Savage’s fierce essays and stories are true to a lived life, and fascinating and irresistible.’
Lynne Tillman
‘Ellena Savage is savagely smart and talented.’
Rachel Kushner
‘Delving into troubling territory, Savage brings a fierce intellect, sharp wit and a handful of uncomfortable truths. To read her is to be simultaneously thrilled and uneasy.’
Jessie Cole
‘Her voice [is] reassuringly droll, critical and warmly intimate…[Savage] has a poetic way of reminding us that crucial learning comes only with age—that time is finite.’
Saturday Paper
‘Blueberries feels like laying down on the train tracks and looking up at the sky—a reverie, shot through by a feeling of acceleration, of something vast coming at you. Ellena Savage’s essays are heartstopping epics of self-inquiry and world-inquiry.’
Maria Tumarkin
'It’s smart, aware and funny while tackling tough issues of sexual abuse, class, memory, privilege and the life of an artist. Each essay blends critical theory and personal reflection, while pushing the boundaries of the form enough to keep each page fresh and challenging.’
Sarah Mott, Writing NSW
'Ellena Savage’s debut essay collection, Blueberries, stole my heart ... Blueberries made me a believer: it is the debut of the year.'
Declan Fry, Sydney Morning Herald
‘Thrilling for its zest and energy, the cheek and playfulness it brings to the essay form – it was one of those books that made me want to sit down and write.’
Fiona Wright
‘Savage pushes boundaries in form and content, and she’s ruthless and relentless in pursing her ideas; Blueberries is a work to engage with, not read passively.’
Readings
‘An intellectually rigorous and energising essay collection that’s both memoir and an interrogation of memoir.’
Alice Cottrell, Kill Your Darlings
‘That the self exists in narrative form lies at the centre of Blueberries, as Savage explores the sites of identity—trauma, gender, class, religion, the body—in clear, rhythmic prose…In the last few pages she expunges herself from the narrative, exposing the scaffolding of her project, and leaves us to ponder the untold: the self that is yet to be, “the she of what next: action”.’
Times Literary Supplement
'In form and in content, Blueberries is exquisite.’
Stella Prize Judge's Report
'Savage is skilled at imparting language to universal feelings that are difficult to articulate.’
BOMB Mag
'A book that almost dares you to try and categorise or assign it a genre...Blueberries is delightfully experiential, challenging readers to abandon their expectations of the English language and treating them to a masterclass in playing with form.’
Fashion Journal
‘Reading Ellena Savage’s Blueberries engaged me completely. Savage’s sparkling writing is bold, witty, insightful, fearless and funny. It emerges from an astute mind at odds with itself, with culture and society. Savage wrestles and plays with received ideas of all kinds, and with what has and hasn’t shaped her. Savage’s fierce essays and stories are true to a lived life, and fascinating and irresistible.’
Lynne Tillman
‘Ellena Savage is savagely smart and talented.’
Rachel Kushner
‘Delving into troubling territory, Savage brings a fierce intellect, sharp wit and a handful of uncomfortable truths. To read her is to be simultaneously thrilled and uneasy.’
Jessie Cole
‘Her voice [is] reassuringly droll, critical and warmly intimate…[Savage] has a poetic way of reminding us that crucial learning comes only with age—that time is finite.’
Saturday Paper
‘Blueberries feels like laying down on the train tracks and looking up at the sky—a reverie, shot through by a feeling of acceleration, of something vast coming at you. Ellena Savage’s essays are heartstopping epics of self-inquiry and world-inquiry.’
Maria Tumarkin
'It’s smart, aware and funny while tackling tough issues of sexual abuse, class, memory, privilege and the life of an artist. Each essay blends critical theory and personal reflection, while pushing the boundaries of the form enough to keep each page fresh and challenging.’
Sarah Mott, Writing NSW
'Ellena Savage’s debut essay collection, Blueberries, stole my heart ... Blueberries made me a believer: it is the debut of the year.'
Declan Fry, Sydney Morning Herald
‘Thrilling for its zest and energy, the cheek and playfulness it brings to the essay form – it was one of those books that made me want to sit down and write.’
Fiona Wright
‘Savage pushes boundaries in form and content, and she’s ruthless and relentless in pursing her ideas; Blueberries is a work to engage with, not read passively.’
Readings
‘An intellectually rigorous and energising essay collection that’s both memoir and an interrogation of memoir.’
Alice Cottrell, Kill Your Darlings
‘That the self exists in narrative form lies at the centre of Blueberries, as Savage explores the sites of identity—trauma, gender, class, religion, the body—in clear, rhythmic prose…In the last few pages she expunges herself from the narrative, exposing the scaffolding of her project, and leaves us to ponder the untold: the self that is yet to be, “the she of what next: action”.’
Times Literary Supplement
'In form and in content, Blueberries is exquisite.’
Stella Prize Judge's Report
'Savage is skilled at imparting language to universal feelings that are difficult to articulate.’
BOMB Mag
'A book that almost dares you to try and categorise or assign it a genre...Blueberries is delightfully experiential, challenging readers to abandon their expectations of the English language and treating them to a masterclass in playing with form.’
Fashion Journal
September 23, 2021
The thing about personal essays, about these reflective pieces, is that you can spot someone who lacks the requisite knowledge to write on x issue (even tangentially) from a mile away. Just one poorly worded phrase is enough to make you know that they're not in command of what they're writing. And that matters in these type of collections because you're reading them for the voice. But in this collection, it's not one phrase, it's all over the place. The first essay, "Yellow City" was great, but even in that essay, there were a few moments where you got this sense. A lot of the pieces were also just meandering, pointless, conflated issues that should not be conflated....
April 8, 2020
The first time I encountered Ellena Savage was in a lecture in the final semester of my undergraduate in creative writing. She read to us, a version of "Portrait of the Writer as Worker (after Deiter Lesage)" and was easily the most compelling of all the speakers for that subject, that semester and my degree as a whole.
"When I am in the habit of writing every day, sometimes it feels that I am writing because writing is trying not to die" (156).
The second time was when I reached out to review "Yellow City", the first of Savage's essays within this collection. I was intoxicated, what kind of body does make a memoir? Certainly not mine I would think. And what kind of body makes a writer? Something again I toss up and down like pesto through pasta an hour after I've finished reading "Blueberries" and I'm still not sure how to articulate.
I read this collection in a sitting. No. I absorbed this collection in a sitting. No? It absorbed me? I don't really know.
I knew what to expect of Savage's writing, the way it twists and turns, questions itself and offers heartfelt anecdotes and call-outs aligned with the variety of queer and feminist underpinnings of her work.
"I read an interview with a friend of a friend, a writer who said he always knew he was a writer, and I thought, bullshit, that only means he always knew he was an "I", he was never a girl who imagined herself only in relation to, an object of the writer" (51).
Reading "Blueberries" was a task I put upon myself to reinforce my thesis. I wasn't sure what it would do really, my thesis focusing on digital poetry around romantic trauma (please do not query me on this, it may change, tell my supervisor I'm trying) and not memoirs. But the lines between poetry and memoir and truth and experience, found me writing down sentence after sentence as I identified with the words in front of me.
Further yet, I found myself sending passages to my friend, begging her to read it and find the same resonance: the feelings of temporarlity, longing for homes and freedom and love.
Savage's essays interrogate life in every curve. She explores the reality of writers, of women, of the law system, of artists, of grammar, sadness, hope, home, bodies. This collection managed to unpin every questioning part of me that begs to understand sexuality and poetry, that begs to me to understand me.
"Writing is an argument for hope: it believes in the future; it believes, even in futures it ought to know better than to" (195).
I screamed about it with another friend after I'd read it. Spoke of the survival of the art industry within COVID-19, of editing the student magazine (another area of resonance between Ellena and I as I question why exactly I chose to do a Masters), of who we would be in the roaring twenties 2.0 (we were off topic by then) and just living and breathing as artists in general.
"Blueberries" is a reminder to own your words, your body and truths. Savage continues to act as a reminder for breath as we undergo transformation after transformation in our lives. This collection is chilling, manipulating and undeniably incredible. Most of my notes as I was reading just included "honestly me" even as I contradict and conspire against myself and anything you could percieve as 'ability.'
"Who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breathe" (204).
This collection is important, and continues to pave the way for captivating nonfiction. I'm not sure I will ever stop thinking about it.
"When I am in the habit of writing every day, sometimes it feels that I am writing because writing is trying not to die" (156).
The second time was when I reached out to review "Yellow City", the first of Savage's essays within this collection. I was intoxicated, what kind of body does make a memoir? Certainly not mine I would think. And what kind of body makes a writer? Something again I toss up and down like pesto through pasta an hour after I've finished reading "Blueberries" and I'm still not sure how to articulate.
I read this collection in a sitting. No. I absorbed this collection in a sitting. No? It absorbed me? I don't really know.
I knew what to expect of Savage's writing, the way it twists and turns, questions itself and offers heartfelt anecdotes and call-outs aligned with the variety of queer and feminist underpinnings of her work.
"I read an interview with a friend of a friend, a writer who said he always knew he was a writer, and I thought, bullshit, that only means he always knew he was an "I", he was never a girl who imagined herself only in relation to, an object of the writer" (51).
Reading "Blueberries" was a task I put upon myself to reinforce my thesis. I wasn't sure what it would do really, my thesis focusing on digital poetry around romantic trauma (please do not query me on this, it may change, tell my supervisor I'm trying) and not memoirs. But the lines between poetry and memoir and truth and experience, found me writing down sentence after sentence as I identified with the words in front of me.
Further yet, I found myself sending passages to my friend, begging her to read it and find the same resonance: the feelings of temporarlity, longing for homes and freedom and love.
Savage's essays interrogate life in every curve. She explores the reality of writers, of women, of the law system, of artists, of grammar, sadness, hope, home, bodies. This collection managed to unpin every questioning part of me that begs to understand sexuality and poetry, that begs to me to understand me.
"Writing is an argument for hope: it believes in the future; it believes, even in futures it ought to know better than to" (195).
I screamed about it with another friend after I'd read it. Spoke of the survival of the art industry within COVID-19, of editing the student magazine (another area of resonance between Ellena and I as I question why exactly I chose to do a Masters), of who we would be in the roaring twenties 2.0 (we were off topic by then) and just living and breathing as artists in general.
"Blueberries" is a reminder to own your words, your body and truths. Savage continues to act as a reminder for breath as we undergo transformation after transformation in our lives. This collection is chilling, manipulating and undeniably incredible. Most of my notes as I was reading just included "honestly me" even as I contradict and conspire against myself and anything you could percieve as 'ability.'
"Who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breathe" (204).
This collection is important, and continues to pave the way for captivating nonfiction. I'm not sure I will ever stop thinking about it.
September 24, 2020
I really wanted to love this more than I did. The opening essay Yellow City about returning to Lisbon to find out about a past sexual assault was my favourite piece and I felt I enjoyed Savage's writing more when she wrote about lived experiences rather than abstract concepts with literary references. I don't know if I wasn't clever enough to get it, but there would be sentences when I would think wow!!!!! and then other parts I felt like I was back at a uni house party with people who think they are intellectuals. This lack of continuity affected my engagement with the whole book unfortunately.
April 20, 2021
Don’t judge a book by its cover. I love this cover. I think that sums it up. I felt so frustrated while reading this book. Ellena Savage whines about privilege while being up there herself, and she seems to be very comfortable sitting there. And what happened to using commas? And for the person who wrote she “is not intelligent enough for this book”: it’s not you, it’s the book. “Blueberries” pretends to be a lot, but as we say in dutch “it’s just baked air”. Highly do not recommend.
March 22, 2020
If it’s the end of the world as we know it, you’re going to want to make sure you read this before it‘s all over. Truly stunning and sublime. Narrative non-fiction of the highest order. She’s an Australian Rebecca Solnit and I loved seeing such intellectual rigour on full display.
Read
April 13, 2021▫️ BLUEBERRIES by Ellena Savage, 2020.
#ReadtheWorld21 📍 Australia
A buzzy book made its way into my #ReadtheWorld21 stack for this month - an essay collection by Australian writer Savage.
I vascillated quite a bit in reaction to these essays. The word that came to mind most frequently was "solopsism"; however, I don't want to sweep it altogether and say this was an entirely solipsistic book.
Obviously personal essays are going to focus on oneself and internal thoughts, musings, and ontology. That's the contract between reader and writer when going in to a book like this.
But then it was kind of like when you meet a very interesting person for the first time and quickly gather how well read, traveled, cultured they are... And then quickly realize that while their stories are all great, that this is ALL they want to talk about: "This time I was summering in the Cyclades...", "My lover in Lisbon always said...", "Once in a bar in Bangkok..." It is both fascinating and a little (lot?) exhausting.
My internal thoughts while reading:
Beginning: Mmkay, this sounds intriguing. (A second later) She really likes to remind us how smart she is.
Middle: I'm in now. Push through. (Rolling eyes occasionally) okay, still some interesting snippets.
Ending: Overall, glad I read that, but not completely sure what she was trying to say here, even though I just read 250 pages.
Okay, that's out of the way... Now to say, YES, some of these essays were really good. My standouts are "Houses", the titular essay "Blueberries" for both it's experimental form and subjects, and the introductory essay "Yellow City" that was published previously as a chapbook, and her dip into literary criticism with "The Literature of Sadness".
Perhaps I read this too close to Torentino's TRICK MIRROR, which I read only a few weeks ago. They are undoubtedly in the same vein, millennial well-educated women writing about feminism, capitalism, cultural criticism... although I think Trick Mirror was the better of the two.
That being said, I'd read another by Savage as a point of comparison.
"...what is an interior life if not a chorus of invisible ghosts shouting at one another: parents and siblings and friends and lovers and teachers and enemies and masters and every novel newspaper celebrity and the dead, all of the dead. What is history if not a stunted, haunted conversation between the living and the dead? Inviting the dead into the world of the living is finding a way to be at home in the body, which is not only a body made of skin and bones. A body that exists only because it exists in relation to the deceased bodies that have created it."
▫️From "Houses" essay
#ReadtheWorld21 📍 Australia
A buzzy book made its way into my #ReadtheWorld21 stack for this month - an essay collection by Australian writer Savage.
I vascillated quite a bit in reaction to these essays. The word that came to mind most frequently was "solopsism"; however, I don't want to sweep it altogether and say this was an entirely solipsistic book.
Obviously personal essays are going to focus on oneself and internal thoughts, musings, and ontology. That's the contract between reader and writer when going in to a book like this.
But then it was kind of like when you meet a very interesting person for the first time and quickly gather how well read, traveled, cultured they are... And then quickly realize that while their stories are all great, that this is ALL they want to talk about: "This time I was summering in the Cyclades...", "My lover in Lisbon always said...", "Once in a bar in Bangkok..." It is both fascinating and a little (lot?) exhausting.
My internal thoughts while reading:
Beginning: Mmkay, this sounds intriguing. (A second later) She really likes to remind us how smart she is.
Middle: I'm in now. Push through. (Rolling eyes occasionally) okay, still some interesting snippets.
Ending: Overall, glad I read that, but not completely sure what she was trying to say here, even though I just read 250 pages.
Okay, that's out of the way... Now to say, YES, some of these essays were really good. My standouts are "Houses", the titular essay "Blueberries" for both it's experimental form and subjects, and the introductory essay "Yellow City" that was published previously as a chapbook, and her dip into literary criticism with "The Literature of Sadness".
Perhaps I read this too close to Torentino's TRICK MIRROR, which I read only a few weeks ago. They are undoubtedly in the same vein, millennial well-educated women writing about feminism, capitalism, cultural criticism... although I think Trick Mirror was the better of the two.
That being said, I'd read another by Savage as a point of comparison.
"...what is an interior life if not a chorus of invisible ghosts shouting at one another: parents and siblings and friends and lovers and teachers and enemies and masters and every novel newspaper celebrity and the dead, all of the dead. What is history if not a stunted, haunted conversation between the living and the dead? Inviting the dead into the world of the living is finding a way to be at home in the body, which is not only a body made of skin and bones. A body that exists only because it exists in relation to the deceased bodies that have created it."
▫️From "Houses" essay
February 16, 2023
More reviews up on my blog Inside My Library Mind
I love books that put me in my place and make me realize that yes, i am, in fact, stupid. blueberries delivered on that.
This isn't to say that Ellena Savage looks down on the reader, not at all. She just manages to put, so succinctly and precisely, into words a lot of my own thoughts and beliefs in a way that I could never. But oh how I enjoy being ACKNOWLEDGED THROUGH LITERATURE.
Blueberries is Savage's take on cultural criticism and writing, but through her own personal experience. Through, she explores what it means to write and what is a memoir, and she also manages to do some really interesting things with both content and form.
I love her discussions of memory, how it constructs a person's identity, but how it's so flighty and I also enjoyed the discussion of class in particular (NO ONE IS SURPRISED). The titular essay is by far one of the best discussions of the class struggle that I read in a while. Savage is terribly smart and terribly self-aware and I appreciated that immensely. The way she discusses how performative progressive politics can be in privileged spaces lives in my mind rent-free. Also thoroughly enjoyed her thoughts on gender relations and specifically, having children as a woman and as a writer. It was fascinating and it echoed a lot of my own beliefs. She also delves into the millennial condition of home ownership.
She does A LOT in here and unbelievably, she does it all successfully and with nuance.
I love a book that defies categorization, and Blueberries is definitely that. There was not a bad essay in here and that says enough. Could not recommend more.
If you enjoy my reviews, consider buying me a Ko-Fi !
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I love books that put me in my place and make me realize that yes, i am, in fact, stupid. blueberries delivered on that.
This isn't to say that Ellena Savage looks down on the reader, not at all. She just manages to put, so succinctly and precisely, into words a lot of my own thoughts and beliefs in a way that I could never. But oh how I enjoy being ACKNOWLEDGED THROUGH LITERATURE.
Blueberries is Savage's take on cultural criticism and writing, but through her own personal experience. Through, she explores what it means to write and what is a memoir, and she also manages to do some really interesting things with both content and form.
I love her discussions of memory, how it constructs a person's identity, but how it's so flighty and I also enjoyed the discussion of class in particular (NO ONE IS SURPRISED). The titular essay is by far one of the best discussions of the class struggle that I read in a while. Savage is terribly smart and terribly self-aware and I appreciated that immensely. The way she discusses how performative progressive politics can be in privileged spaces lives in my mind rent-free. Also thoroughly enjoyed her thoughts on gender relations and specifically, having children as a woman and as a writer. It was fascinating and it echoed a lot of my own beliefs. She also delves into the millennial condition of home ownership.
She does A LOT in here and unbelievably, she does it all successfully and with nuance.
I love a book that defies categorization, and Blueberries is definitely that. There was not a bad essay in here and that says enough. Could not recommend more.
If you enjoy my reviews, consider buying me a Ko-Fi !
Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Storygraph
April 20, 2020
Every bit as brilliant as I'd heard and hoped. Thoughts of a life examined down to their bones. And so wonderfully balanced as a piece of writing. It's truly thoughtful, and heartbreaking, and best of all, funny.
February 3, 2020
Intimate, expansive, tender, fluid, curious, furious. There are perfectly-expressed ideas and genius lines on every page of these wonderful memoir-essays.
January 31, 2022
Boring, vague, feels like unintentional writing with no purpose or conviction under it, and a lot of surface level understandings and claims regarding class and womanhood.
But I guess since it’s a memoir, the nature of this book exposes the author as they are. A white middle class woman aware of her matrix but seemingly weighed down by the responsibility her power holds in turn portraying a helpless and deceivingly powerless narrator.
That’s just how I feel. I enjoyed the beginning to middle more than any other part.
But I guess since it’s a memoir, the nature of this book exposes the author as they are. A white middle class woman aware of her matrix but seemingly weighed down by the responsibility her power holds in turn portraying a helpless and deceivingly powerless narrator.
That’s just how I feel. I enjoyed the beginning to middle more than any other part.
July 16, 2021
I think the excellence of Blueberries is indescribable and I could never do it justice by talking about it in my own words but I shall try :)
Ellena Savage has created a masterpiece in this essay collection that concerns itself with questions of body, memory, time, power, class, home, choice, and writing. Each essay brings something new to the table and addresses whatever issue at hand with such honesty and command of language. I really like that she isn't afraid to interrogate her own effects on whatever topic is at hand, especially her position as a writer or the fallibility of her own memory. The way she portrays the construction of memory is so precise, yet vulnerable.
A lot of topics seem theoretical but she is able to ground each essay in her concrete experiences while also exploring the abstract side as well. She is able to keep herself in each essay and that influences how we read it. It's a perfect balance of the self and the conceptual. Each essay also plays with structure, with unique effects that depend on the content.
I love how obsessed she is with writing, reading, and just being a literary being; I can only dream of being as cool and smart as she seems lol. I love books that make me love the act of writing!
Ellena Savage has created a masterpiece in this essay collection that concerns itself with questions of body, memory, time, power, class, home, choice, and writing. Each essay brings something new to the table and addresses whatever issue at hand with such honesty and command of language. I really like that she isn't afraid to interrogate her own effects on whatever topic is at hand, especially her position as a writer or the fallibility of her own memory. The way she portrays the construction of memory is so precise, yet vulnerable.
A lot of topics seem theoretical but she is able to ground each essay in her concrete experiences while also exploring the abstract side as well. She is able to keep herself in each essay and that influences how we read it. It's a perfect balance of the self and the conceptual. Each essay also plays with structure, with unique effects that depend on the content.
I love how obsessed she is with writing, reading, and just being a literary being; I can only dream of being as cool and smart as she seems lol. I love books that make me love the act of writing!
March 9, 2020
In these brilliant, absorbing essays, Ellena Savage roams the world and inhabits the Melbourne she grew up in and continues to return to, examining her roots as a bright girl from a working-class suburb (now gentrified) living in a bohemian household, on land founded on violent dispossession, and her journey as a writer and a woman. Threads that run throughout include a searching for and running from home, a steely commitment to the writing/artistic life (and the material sacrifices that entails - mostly, renouncing security and comfort), the contradictions of modern-day western artistic ‘poverty’ that is chosen and therefore escapable, and what it is to be a woman, in a woman’s body, in the world. Also, an exploration of how she had been formed and reformed, consciously and subconsciously, through engagement with books and art.
So much heart & soul, born of such voracious reading & thinking, so rooted in the real and acknowledging the privilege and restrictions built into the structure of the writing & publishing life. In her raw generosity of thought & feeling, her technical mastery and her poetic innovation of form, Ellena Savage reminds me of her mentor Maria Tumarkin. High praise!
So much heart & soul, born of such voracious reading & thinking, so rooted in the real and acknowledging the privilege and restrictions built into the structure of the writing & publishing life. In her raw generosity of thought & feeling, her technical mastery and her poetic innovation of form, Ellena Savage reminds me of her mentor Maria Tumarkin. High praise!
January 20, 2021
What stood out most in this anthology is how very angry the author seems with the world.
The form is original, engaging and for the most part clever. There were nuggets of poignant observations and self-reflection throughout, with some essays being utterly engrossing and powerful, and others almost petulant.
Overall, I found it an interesting read but became increasingly annoyed and eventually sad for the author.
The form is original, engaging and for the most part clever. There were nuggets of poignant observations and self-reflection throughout, with some essays being utterly engrossing and powerful, and others almost petulant.
Overall, I found it an interesting read but became increasingly annoyed and eventually sad for the author.
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