Long Distance - by Aysegül Savas (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of one of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2024 The Anthropologists, comes a masterful collection of stories about distance and closeness in the age of connectivity.

"An exceptionally elegant, intelligent, and original writer." -Sigrid Nunez
"She is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows." -Bryan Washington
"The rigor of Didion and the tenderness of Sebald." -Catherine Lacey
"One of my favorite writers." -Katie Kitamura

A researcher abroad in Rome eagerly awaits a visit from her long-distance lover, only to find he is not the same man she remembers. An expat meets a childhood friend on a layover and is dismayed by her unexpected contentment. A newly pregnant woman considers the American taboo of sharing the news too soon, but can't resist when an opportunity comes to patch up a damaged friendship.

Long Distance showcases Savas's devastating talent for the short story. Her shrewd encapsulations of contemporary life often center on characters displaced more by choice than circumstance, characters both determined to install themselves in new lives and preoccupied with the people they've left behind.

Review Quotes

"In Savas's astute and absorbing collection of stories, her protagonists find themselves questioning long-held assumptions about their innate qualities as encounters with friends and strangers, lovers and family members, prompt reevaluations that can sometimes be gently forgiving and at other times quietly devastating."" --The New Yorker

"Cosmopolitan and richly observed, the stories probe the disparate versions of the self that spring up in encounters with an almost-forgotten past: an old friend you'd written off too soon, people from the place you once called home, a host parent you couldn't fully appreciate. Savas is fluent in the ways we experience displacement and change, and how we seek connection over time." --Vulture

"Savas's characters uncouple, miss connections, and reunite after absences . . . These . . . seemingly modest pieces display Savas's great grace and simplicity, as the reader is reeled into her characters' lives." --The Center for Fiction

"Sumptuous . . . creates a kind of omakase menu. Individual, perfectly composed dishes have both a visible and ephemeral connection with each other . . . The collective offers a rumination on the many ways there are distances in our lives." --The Brooklyn Rail

"Savas describes disconnection and discord so well that you can feel all the unsettled emotions in the pit of your stomach." --Vulture, "Best Books of 2025 So Far"

"Savas captures the complexities of desire and loss in this gorgeous collection . . . With unsparing grace, Savas tenderly illustrates the struggles of her characters as they seek fulfillment. There's much to love in these brilliant stories." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Alliances and affections shift, understandings waver and beliefs are challenged in this collection of stories which individually and collectively convey the difficulties of maintaining connections in a fractured world. Subtle but clearly drawn sketches of the ties that bind and that, inevitably, come undone." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[Savas] portrays millennials on the cusp of the next phase in their lives, whether that's buying a home or exploring new relationships. Populating these tales are richly textured characters struggling to make room for new goalposts while accommodating the old . . . The characters may be vulnerable, but they are never overwrought, a balancing act Savas executes flawlessly." --Booklist, starred review

"Savas is best when depicting a single, unspoken moment that fractures a relationship, revealing, with balletic restraint, that two people never knew each other the way they thought. While her characters want to believe in the metamorphic potential of travel, Savas deftly shows that the most important transformations happen in subtle moments of disconnection." --The Cut's "Book Gossip"

"This lovingly written debut collection of stories centers on themes of aloneness, expectations, connections and modernity. In fluid and graceful prose, Savas presents whole, complex characters from across the world as they navigate pregnancy, tradition, friendship, love and transitions" --Ms. Magazine

"This elegant set of stories explores the quiet drama of relationships stretched across cities, languages, and time zones. From expats and artists to sleep-deprived parents, these characters drift between closeness and solitude." --Tertulia

"The stories in Long Distance are to be savored. They are exquisite. The displaced people in them are straddling new and old lives in a sort of liminal space. Everyday habits become weighted and meaningful." --Albany Times-Union

"Like little slices of distilled humanity, these stories capture life at its largest and its smallest. Exquisitely emotional, millimetre precise, and with a singular Savas-specific atmosphere that is hard to describe or pinpoint, but unmistakably there from the first page. With Long Distance, Savas has cemented herself as one of my favourite contemporary writers." --Jenny Mustard, author of WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE and OKAY DAYS

"Savas' prose is an X-ray-an acute portrait of the tender frequencies that make a life." --Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER on THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS

"The Anthropologists is about love, youth, and that most profound and elusive of subjects-happiness. Full of delicacy, wisdom and wit, this is another gorgeous work from one of my favorite writers." --Katie Kitamura, author of INTIMACIES on THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS

About the Author