Glass

"Sam Savage has become one of America's funniest, cleverest, and most vital writers of fiction."—Michael Schaub,Bookslut

Tasked with writing a preface to a reissue of her late husband's long-out-of-print novel, Edna is unexpectedly asked to take care of a vacationing neighbor's pet rat, fish, and potted plants. Sitting at her typewriter day after day, Edna becomes lost in a Proustian marathon of introspection, mixing philosophical reflection and humor with minute accounts of her daily life. What unfolds, as if by accident, is the story of a marriage and a portrait of a mind pushed to its limits by the emptiness of the hours and the pain of memory.

The reader is never certain if Edna's preface is a homage to her late husband or an act of belated revenge. Is she the cultured victim of a crass and brutally ambitious husband, or is Edna neurotic and delusional?

The unforgettable characters in Sam Savage's two previous hit novelsFirminandThe Cry of the Slothgarnered worldwide critical acclaim. In Edna, once again Savage has created a character marked by contradiction—simultaneously appealing and exasperating, comical and tragic.

Sam Savageis the best-selling author Adventures of a Metropolitan LowlifeandThe Cry of the Sloth. A finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, Savage holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale University and resides in Madison, Wisconsin.