Saul Stories is a linked collection that explores the relationships between a forty-year-old female artist, her teenaged daughter, and her daughter's friends. With ferocious realism, the book interrogates how children of differing classes and races are treated in the U.S., and the salacious and skeptical ways the current culture views cross-generational friendships. But most potently—in narratives taking place in Denny's and movie theatres and living rooms and cars—Saul Stories wonders what it means to be a woman and an artist and a mother, all at once. 

 

"I didn't want to ever be outside of this moment. I knew at some point I would look at the picture I'd just taken and feel an overwhelming sense of loss. I thought as long as we could manage to stay inside this particular hotel room, to avoid our phones and every person with whom we'd ever come into contact, we would continue to feel whole. We were revolutionaries, goddamnit. These were our accumulation of beautiful moments. Before the world fractured us. I don't expect you to understand how I became Brad Pitt in that moment, how we all just flew along down the highway. Bandits. Ex-patriots. In love with this countryside, if not this country. Paper Moon. The Last Picture Show. All of this shot in black and white. Only the final scene in color."

 

Blurbs:

“Simply one of the best writers alive in the world today.”

 – Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book, Crapalachia, and HIll William

 

"Saul is like a modern-day Tadzio from Death in Venice. I don't know why I found [Saul Stories] so homoerotic, maybe just because I'm a gay guy?"

- UNITY, Goodreads

 

"[Saul Stories is] a strange but compelling book about boredom, loneliness, self-destructive desires, and unexpected alliances. Love reading anything Elizabeth Ellen writes — Her voice is like no one else’s!"

 – Siel Ju, Goodreads

 

"i also really appreciated how the linked stories [in Saul Stories] let you see characters go in and out, especially across race. this book felt not awkward about race which is a low but honestly hard (like idk if i can be not awkward) bar."

-Julie, Goodreads 

 

"The stories pummel through time, leaving the inevitable conflict and ugly parts implied like whispers in the community; like dirty looks from illustrious older white men who’ve invested a lot of money in something you obviously are supposed to be grateful for. It’s there. You feel it and everyone else does, too, yet no one ever talks about it. Ellen’s writing is masterful as Saul Stories reads like a candid conversation with an affable acquaintance that just shares too much and doesn’t give a fuck what you think. She never tries to sway the reader’s opinion or stance, merely gives an accurate review of the situation from one side of the story. Smart without pretense, discontented without angst, uncomfortably funny and painstakingly direct, it’s almost cliché to laud Saul Stories as Lolita for the internet age, but it’s also hard to miss that assessment."

 – Jerome Spencer, Popscure (https://www.popscuremedia.com/blog/saulstories)

 

“Funnier than Person/a. I laughed out loud a lot.”

 – Tao Lin, author of Bed and Taipai

 

“Reading these stories makes me wanna smoke weed and drive thru mcds 24/7.”

 – Chloe Caldwell, author of Women and Legs Get Led Astray 

 

"A relentless, tension-filled investigation of discontent."

 – Jim Ruland, author of Big Lonesome

 

“I read [Saul Stories] with interest-- I loved the atmosphere in these stories, and appreciate the pop culture references and details reminiscent of the suburbs. I was at times unclear on the dynamics of the family and despite the underlying tension wasn't always absolutely sure of the stakes.”

 – unidentified literary agent

 

"Saul Stories is about as close as an adult can come to honestly explaining things."

 – Joe Sacksteder, author of Game in the Sand 

 

“Elizabeth Ellen is so good at being creepy.”

  – Juliet Escoria on Saul Stories