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Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife | 
| Author: Sam Savage
Creator: Michael Mikolowski
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $4.92
You Save: $10.03 (67%)
New (27) Used (20) Collectible (1) from $4.62
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 109926
Media: Paperback
Pages: 162
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 1566891817
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781566891813
ASIN: 1566891817
Publication Date: April 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"I had always imagined that my life story...would have a great first line: something like Nabokov's 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins;' or if I could not do lyric, then something sweeping like Tolstoy's 'All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'... When it comes to openers, though, the best in my view has to be the first line of Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier: 'This is the saddest story I have ever heard.'" So begins the remarkable tale of Firmin the rat. Born in a bookstore in a blighted 1960's Boston neighborhood, Firmin miraculously learns how to read by digesting his nest of books. Alienated from his family and unable to communicate with the humans he loves, Firmin quickly realizes that a literate rat is a lonely rat. Following a harrowing misunderstanding with his hero, the bookseller, Firmin begins to risk the dangers of Scollay Square, finding solace in the Lovelies of the burlesque cinema. Finally adopted by a down-on-his-luck science fiction writer, the tide begins to turn, but soon they both face homelessness when the wrecking ball of urban renewal arrives. In a series of misadventures, Firmin is ultimately led deep into his own imaginative soul-a place where Ginger Rogers can hold him tight and tattered books, storied neighborhoods, and down-and-out rats can find people who adore them. A native of South Carolina, Sam Savage now lives in Madison, Wisconsin. This is his first novel.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
Unrequited love is bad, but unrequitable love can really get you down. September 20, 2008
cluricaune (Co. Armagh, N. Ireland)
"Firmin" is Sam Savage's debut novel, and was first published in 2006. It's also one of the very few books I've ever read where the lead character has been a rodent.
Unusually for a rat, Firmin is a very well-read character - one with the soul of an artist and an eye for the ladies. He was born in the basement of Pembroke Books, a bookshop on Scollay Square in Boston in the early 1960s. The location was something of a last resort for his mother, Flo - a fat, twitchy drunk who didn't cry over spilt beer, but drank it instead. Flo made her bedding from "Finnegan's Wake" - and that proved to be the making of our hero. Firmin was the runt of the litter - the thirteenth child of a mother with twelve teats. (He picked up whatever leftovers he could, lapping up just about enough to survive). Eventually, he started eating his bedding - an act of desperation that, for a while at least, subsequently became an addiction. Few can have devoured "Finnegan's Wake" in the manner Firmin did and he believes his early diet led to his "unusual mental development". When, as a young rat, he decided to add a little variety in his diet, it involved finding - and eating - other books. Soon, he notices that each book tastes slightly differently and, before long, that there's a correlation between the taste and the flavour of the pages and the quality of the writing. (Interestingly, "Jane Eyre" tastes like cabbage). As he grows older, he spends more time and more reading the books and scavenging his meals from around the Square.
In time, his siblings grow up and move on - much like Flo, who is the first to disappear. Firmin is the only member of his family to stay on in the bookshop. He loves being able to watch the comings and goings from his vantage points - "The Balloon" (a crack in the roof) and "The Balcony" (a hole in the wall) - and the conversations he overhears keeps him up-to-date with the outside world. How Firmin views himself, however, is in a constant state of flux...possibly because he seems to feel more human than rat. While he has no real problem with his intellect, he detests his appearance and longs to be able to speak. At various points, he refers to himself as a dreamer and a hopeless romantic...and, yet, he'll still shudder at the thought of the "monster" in the mirror. On his first trip outside, he'd fallen head-over-heels in love with the women in the poster on the Rialto's wall. (The Rialto is the Square's cinema - it shows classic, old-style movies during the day, and porn all night. Firmin loves it there - he often dines on discarded popcorn and chocolate bars, and he spends many happy hours drooling over his 'Lovelies'. Unfortunately, he shows no subsequent interest in ogling any lady rats - and, since the only female rat he'd ever ogled up until that point had been his sister - he also views himself as a pervert and a freak). Given his devotion to the female form, then, it's maybe a little odd that the two most important people to Firmin are male. One is Norman Shine - the owner of Pembroke Books - and the other is Jerry Magoon - an author who rents an apartment upstairs.
The Square is the world to Firmin, with the bookshop and the Rialto between them catering for his head, his heart and his belly. Naturally, though, disaster is on the horizon : Boston's Mayor sees the area as a rat-infested blot on the landscape, which is badly in need of a bulldozer.
A very enjoyable, very easily read book - Fermin, despite his appearance and his low self-opinion, is a hugely likeable character. Comfortably the best book I've read this year, totally recommended !
Absolutely enchanting and creative August 14, 2008
Gwendolyn Dawson (Houston, Texas United States)
This is a concise and touching story about a rat in Boston who can read. Really, the book is a tightly written allegory about human life and struggle. Absolutely enchanting and creative.
The work of a genious May 18, 2007
E. R.R.
Sam Savage is a genious. There are few books that can be with you for your hole life, and Firmin is ONE OF THOSE books. A read with diferent levels, a masterpiece for all ages. A great fable, a good fun, an outstanding tragedy. Read.
A Book That's Good Enough to Eat April 2, 2007
doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sam Savage has come up with a very unique and enjoyable premise for his debut novel, with one of the most creative uses of fantasy to probably come along in ages. Firmin, a big-thinking rat who you'll totally love, grows up in a used bookstore in a run-down Boston neighborhood. Forced to eat old books after losing the battle for real food to his bigger siblings, runty Firmin somehow learns to read and absorbs a world of human knowledge. In a classic exercise of the "outside observer" literary device, we learn of Firmin's unique emotional longings and rat-like views of human society. With a human intelligence stuck in the body of a rat, Firmin lives a life of the imagination, based on scenes from his favorite books, and befriends a non-conformist struggling writer who is a real comrade in arms. This masterful book is full of whimsical humor, a true appreciation for classic literature, winning insights into humanity, and momentous sadness, as Firmin watches his human friends and his beloved neighborhood slip away. This is an outstandingly well-written story and is recommended for fans of insightful and empathetic literature, and offbeat new directions in fantasy. [~doomsdayer520~]
 Frodo Meets Caulfied March 8, 2007
Vance (buffalo, new york United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
An engrossing tale about, of all things, a sweetly cynical and most sympathetic rat who is a cross between Frodo Baggins and Holden Caulfield. He is befriended by a writer, Jerry Magoon, who is surely an autobiographical rendition of the author, and reminds one of Charles Bukoswki. A wonderful urban fantasy, even for those who hate the Boston Red Sox!
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