What Do We Inherit? Love, Legacy and Landfill with Ellena Savage, The Ruiners

What do we inherit from the world and the people in it, and what do we do with it? In this episode, Leanne and Chelle talk with Ellena Savage about her debut novel, The Ruiners.

Pip is a university dropout working at a Melbourne lobster shack. When her long-absent father dies and leaves her $50,000, she and her boyfriend Sasha, an ambitious young scholar, buy a run-down house on a struggling Greek island. The island doesn’t turn out to be the dream they imagined.

"I wanted it to feel like a dinner party with too many people talking and too much food." — Ellena Savage

Ellena explains why the book was almost called Mummy, and why “the ruiners” covers everyone from her hapless late-twenties characters to the corporations and politicians who shape our lives. We talk about Pip’s quiet refusal to chase ambition, Sasha’s defences against his own feelings, and why Ellena wanted the novel to be loud and maximalist instead of quiet and minimal. We also get into what she saw on real Greek islands: landfills, seasonal work, and the gap between holiday fantasy and local life. She shares why recycling is a bigger political issue than our own good habits, and why small local action still matters.

Plus: why there’s a lobster on the cover. (Read the book to find out!)

About Ellena Savage

Ellena Savage is an Australian writer and the author of the critically acclaimed essay collection Blueberries. Her stories and essays have been widely published and supported by grants and residential fellowships. The Ruiners is her first novel, published in Australia, the US and the UK.

* Website: https://ellenasavage.com/

* Instagram: @rarrsavage

* Buy the book: Simon & Schuster

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