Piquant, elegiac, surreal short portraits of animals, human and otherwise, sketching a vision of life as a measure of loss.

Sam Savage’s final book is a collection of stripped down visitations, flash fictions of smoke breaks and long drives and friends who finally stop showing up. The acidic tang of disappointment is here, and sparks of biting insight, in portraits of people and animals, in all our absurdity and failed attempts at meaning. As Sam says, “What a life.”

Reviews“Savage’s narratives are bravura displays of authorial concision and meticulous detail.” —Publishers Weekly“An Orphanage of Dreams . . . implores you to slow down and savor the final writings of a man who had a lot to say.” —Isthmus“An elegiac collection of trim stories that is at times humorous and mischievous and at others bleak and illusory.” —Splice“An Orphanage of Dreams is a collection as quiet and new as the dawn. These surprising parables, not unlike Primo Levi’s, made me feel part of a kinder, larger world. Anyone who has suffered and still dares to hope should read this book by the extraordinary writer Sam Savage.” —Kate Bernheimer“Open the door of this Orphanage of Dreams and walk as if on clouds. Dreams reveal, condense, betray, distort, translate, highlight, let slip, point to a higher truth. And so do these stories, a delicate lattice of language and longing. A thorough delight for the senses. Your waking hours will never be the same.” —Cristina Rivera Garza“With his last literary breath, Sam Savage has once again given readers insight into those we may think to pass by hurriedly or who we might not notice at all.” —Big OtherPraise for Sam Savage“Savage’s is a book of the heart as much as the head. Which is itself an accomplishment of no small note: to recognize the arbitrary, degraded thing that is memory, and allow it its loveliness for all of that.” —New York Times“Savage’s lean, meditative novels, so meticulously pitched and poised, eschew the bloated excess and garish dazzle that can mar those from writers half his age.” —Star Tribune