Say Say Say is something quite special, unlike anything else I've ever read. Lila Savage's voice is distinctive, perhaps the timbre of a new generation - its deadpan; its fascination with randomness and accident; its lack of interest in making rounded meaning. I love the way Ella's intense thoughts and feelings on one page are contradicted by different intense thoughts and feelings (and certainties) a few pages later. Which is like life. Yet there's no show of anomie or alienation, no effort to shock (even though the material is shocking). Lila Savage's imagination is warm and generous. Her novel is haunting, original, intelligent. -- Tessa Hadley
Say Say Say is a powerful and thought-provoking novel about the role of care-giver and whether simple kindness is enough. In looking after someone profoundly changed after a car accident, Ella confronts her own prejudices and discovers more about herself. An impressive and affecting debut, this book had me reflecting on compassion, gender roles, and what it means to love. -- Claire Fuller
Say Say Say will likely make you cry, but this is a rare novel in which such responses feel clean and ennobling, free from manipulation. It is a book written for the better angels of our nature ... wonderful * Wall Street Journal *
A gem of a book. A lyrical, tender, and profoundly insightful dive into the act of caregiving and its highly charged nexus of love, duty, and longing. Lila Savage is an enormous talent; Say Say Say is a mesmerising tour de force. -- Abraham Verghese
Wise and understated ... Say Say Say asks difficult questions, of society and of the self. There are no easy answers, but in the novel's quietly radical choice of subject matter and its open-eyed, open-hearted curiosity, it illuminates both the intimate dramas usually hidden behind closed doors and the shifting mysteries of personality and relationship. -- Justine Jordan * Guardian *
Lila Savage, through the experience of the caregiver Ella, vividly illuminates what sustains us when facing suffering and loss: relationships based on trust, honesty, humility and, most of all, the tenacity of love. Say Say Say stirs the reader's mind and heart, and resonates long after the book is closed. -- Jerome Groopman
Lila's observations on the ordinary lives of one carer and one couple living with the wake of a devastating brain injury between them are breathtaking; raw, powerful and pivotally, unabashed. Her writing is effortlessly absorbed. Say Say Say asks what exactly it can mean to love, when you care for life's most vulnerable people and the answer is both devastating and beautiful. -- Aoife Abbey
I cannot think when I last read a novel which moved me so deeply. Savage is almost supernaturally alert to the little gestures and transactions we all make as we negotiate our place in the world, and our relations to each other. Her approach is both unflinching and extraordinarily tender, so that I came away feeling I had undergone an examination which was somehow both painful and kind. I loved it, and it has remained with me in a way few other books have ever done -- Sarah Perry
Say Say Say is brilliant, compelling, entertaining and a joy to read. I loved that it was about a relationship that wasn't a partner or lover relationship, but nevertheless very intimate. It is an extraordinarily good book. -- Philippa Perry
Luminous . . . A startling, tender debut. [As] Ella, a young caregiver, finds herself gradually immersed in Bryn and Jill's lives, her role as Jill's companion evolves into something more intimate and complex . . . What Ella witnesses between [the couple] challenges her ideas of love, spirituality, and empathy. Quietly forceful, Savage's luminous debut is beautifully written, and will stay with readers long after the final page. * Publisher's Weekly starred review *
A bright spot in the maelstrom: a book called Say Say Say. It's a smooth and assured portrait of a character's interior world, as well as a meditation on our assumptions about care work, and heterosexual relationships. -- Emily Gould
Poetic, elegant. . . Say Say Say teaches several valuable lessons: How to be present with grace and dignity. How not to look away. How life goes on... Savage follows the opposite arcs of these two women with such kindness (that's the only word for it), even the most difficult moments of the story feel buffered by grace. -- Elisabeth Egan * San Francisco Chronicle *
Say Say Say will likely make you cry, but this is a rare novel in which such responses feel clean and ennobling, free from manipulation. It is a book written for the better angels of our nature. -- Sam Sacks * Wall Street Journal *
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a Wallace Stegner Fellow, Savage herself spent almost a decade working as a caregiver, and her insight into this fraught and intimate profession comes through on every page in incisive and beautiful language. The third-person narration is intensely reflective and psychologically revelatory. -- Kathleen Rooney * Minneapolis Star Tribune *
Say Say Say, Lila Savage's subversive debut novel... is a riveting story and a meditation on work, loss, intimacy, and desire. -- Ottessa Moshfegh * GQ *
An emotional masterpiece . . . Say Say Say is a heartbreaking book [told in] bracingly honest, unflinching prose . . . it meditates on empathy and finding human connection even in the worst of circumstances. -- Liz Moody * Mind Body Green *
Inspiring, truly memorable-beautifully drawn; intellectually and emotionally gripping. . . Savage brings insight. One of the many wonders of this novel is her anatomy of how caregivers respond to the issues they face and how they cope. Incidents form a kind of river of episodes and commentary that carries readers forward on a flow of vivid and entrancing prose. . . Say Say Say is perceptive in its commentary, and edifying in its humanity. -- Claire Hopley * The Washington Times *
A breakthrough in women's fiction. . . What Lila Savage has created is extremely rare in contemporary fiction... Savage takes ordinary human suffering as her subject, and establishes a signpost for new directions in literature about young women... [She] creates new configurations of women's self-love, based on human connection. -- Jo Livingstone * The New Republic *
I was hungry for this novel before I knew it existed... Say Say Say explores societal stratification-particularly of gender and class-but resists easy commentary. Instead, the novel is full of complexity, and page after page of piercing insights. . . A strange and gorgeous book. -- Chia-Chia Lin * Electric Literature *
Savage writes from an unusual perspective with clarity, intelligence and remove ... A visceral story, with a philosophical heart. * Irish Times *
