In her fiction debut, *The Ruiners*, Ellena Savage tackles the awkward realities of white privilege, social mobility, and having zero ancestral connection - because nothing says “fun times” like watching the world burn while you figure out your own life. At first glance, it looks like Savage has abandoned the experimental ambition of her memoir *Blueberries*, but the novel gradually reveals itself to be craftier and more subversive than a con artist at a yacht party.
This anti-inheritance novel is in direct, playful conversation with one of its inspirations: Charles Dickens’ *Great Expectations*. Knowledge of that coming-of-age classic isn’t essential, but it’s delightful to see Savage tease its themes in her surreal contemporary take. Our protagonist, 29-year-old Pip, drifts aimlessly through life - smart, funny, and vaguely unhappy, as if she just realized her Spotify Wrapped is all sad indie songs. In quick succession, her estranged father dies and leaves her $50,000, and she falls recklessly in love with Sasha, a brooding young writer who narrates the novel’s third part. With her inheritance, Pip sees a chance to change her situation: she quits her job (claiming a rare blood disorder in her resignation letter), marries Sasha, and spends every penny on a rotting house on the remote fictional Greek island of Fokos. In the background, a trash volcano burns relentlessly, and waste pirates fight to offload illegal garbage onto the shores. Because of course. But the move does little to improve their circumstances or resolve their unhappiness - shocking, we know.
*The Ruiners* by Ellena Savage is out now (Summit Books, $34.99). Read on if you enjoy tragic comedies about socialism, inequality, and flawed human connections while the planet literally smolders.