The Ruiners

'With a scathing wit and genuine narrative flair, Ellena Savage has written a contemporary parable about gentrification, class, climate change and the need for political action' - Vincenzo Latronico, author of Perfection 'A darkly comic, ridiculously smart novel about desire, desperation, hope, disappointment, politics and trying to do the right thing' - Madeleine Gray, author of Green Dot 'A riot - a book full of wild energy and uncompromising wit, with a huge heart' - Octavia Bright, author of This Ragged Grace 'Thrilling . . . I stayed up late reading' - Lauren Oyler, author of No Judgement Pip's life is going nowhere. She's a university drop-out stuck in a dead-end job at a Melbourne lobster shack. But when her long-absent father dies, she's left an orphan and fifty-thousand dollars richer. She doesn't know what to do with her windfall until she meets Sasha, a dashing young scholar of Balkan literature. Together, they hatch a mad plan: buy a decrepit house on a distressed Greek island where Sasha will write and Pip will sort out what to do with her life. However, instead of bohemian idyll, the couple find themselves ensnared in an environmental struggle that brings the mistakes of the past into sharp relief. This is a literary page-turner about love, lust, legacy and the last days of civilisation as we know it. Instead of hiding from the world we've inherited, The Ruiners asks how we can create a better one. 'Ellena Savage is savagely smart and talented' - Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room

Ellena Savage is an Australian author. Her debut essay collection, Blueberries, was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier's Literary Award and longlisted for the Stella Prize. Her short stories and essays have been published and anthologized widely, in journals, including The Paris Review Daily, HEAT, Sydney Review of Books, Aeon, Literary Hub, Overland, and Australia's oldest literary journal Meanjin; in newspapers like The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, The Saturday Paper and in anthologies, including By the River and Open Secrets. Savage holds a Ph.D. from Monash University and has taught writing at universities around Australia and in the UK. She was recently awarded a residential fellowship from MacDowell.