Blueberries

Sometimes I think it’s possible to live with anything. That we’re wired to survive-survive-survive, to grip onto the gnarliest thread until life is pried from our bones. Other times I think, it’s not possible to live at all. Not at all.

Blueberries could be described as a collection of essays, the closest term available for a book that resists classification: a blend of personal essay, polemic, prose poetry, true-crime journalism and confession that considers a fragmented life, reflecting on what it means to be a woman, a body, an artist. It is both a memoir and an interrogation of memoir. It is a new horizon in storytelling.

In crystalline prose, Savage explores the essential questions of the examined life: what is it to desire? What is it to accommodate oneself to the world? And at what cost?

‘The most exciting work of creative non-fiction to be published in this country since Maria Tumarkin took up the pen.’ Australian

‘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

'In form and in content, Blueberries is exquisite.’ Stella Prize Judges’ Report