Lowest Common Denominator

Praise for Lowest Common Denominator 

“Saisio beautifully captures the wonder and horror that can coexist in a child’s imagination…Pirkko finds in literature the space to explore conflicts of class and gender (“Everything that exists in the world is waiting for me to capture it in books”). Readers will be grateful to share in Pirkko’s discoveries.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A deeply felt work of unusual intelligence, Lowest Common Denominator is many things, but it refuses to be neatly categorized. As the narrator deals with grief over losing her father, she tries to reconcile the present reality of middle age with the fragmented memories she’s able to stitch together from childhood. A heady, surreal reading experience, full of linguistic magic that makes the world feel alive with possibility.”
—David Vogel, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI)

“Lowest Common Denominator paints an Ernaux-esque picture of a fragmented childhood in post-war Finland. At times heart wrenching and at others hilarious, [this] is a poignant story of a both a young girl figuring out who she is and a woman in late middle age sifting through memories of her lost childhood as she copes with the death of her father. Switching back and forth from first to third person, Saisio ingeniously illustrates how the young main character learns to cope with her growing sense of depersonalization and gender dysphoria by narrating her life as it happens. Telling herself the story of herself in a way that Joan Didion would approve of.”
—Laurel Kane, White Whale Bookstore (Pittsburgh, PA)

“Equal parts bizarre and electrifying. I have to wonder what’s happening over in Finland to produce such striking work.”
—Bex Frankeberger, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)

“This work of autofiction brings to mind Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book, albeit with a much darker, more jaded perspective…Saisio skips back and forth in time and often switches from first to third person, a technique that serves to pull the reader in while simultaneously pushing them away. With wit, intelligence, and a refreshing frankness, she conveys the pains, pleasures, and perils of cutting the strings of her past.”
—Grace Harper, Mac’s Books (Cleveland Heights, OH)

“Lowest Common Denominator captures the confusing, exciting childhood conceptions of gender. Saisio sets herself apart in this Bildungsroman that takes you back to the feeling of growing up and testing the waters of adulthood, navigating the world with expectations you create for yourself that diverge from your family. There were deeply buried childhood memories and thoughts that surfaced as I read this.”
—Audrey Kohler, BookWoman (Austin, TX)

“This is one for every weird kid who grew up with stories bouncing around in their head. For every kid who felt like they didn’t quite belong. I loved the language and style of this book along with just feeling connected to the narrator as a fellow weird kid.”
—Katelynn Phillips, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)

Praise for Pirkko Saisio and The Red Book of Farewells

Winner of the Finlandia Prize
Winner of the Aleksis Kivi Prize

“In Pirkko’s Helsinki, the personal and political are not collapsed but interlinked, and revolution is closely tied with sensuality. Idealistic young people rush, disguised in drab overcoats, to secret locations where coded knocks allow them inside to discuss the hot political topics of the day. And then, in those back rooms, private identities bloom… Long an object of study in Finland, Saisio’s work is beginning to gain more global recognition now, cementing her place in the canon of autofiction that also includes the Nordic writers Karl Ove Knausgaard and Tove Ditlevsen.”
—Niina Pollari, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A beautifully rendered portrait of a strikingly queer life—Saisio troubles any distinction we might try to draw between the personal and the political, the remembered and the invented.”
—Morgan Thomas, author of Manywhere

“This Red Book of Farewells is also a book of welcoming: to life, to love, to death, to art, to revolution, to our ever-changing identities. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and like nothing I’ve ever read before.”
—Jazmina Barrera, author of Linea Nigra

Additional Materials

• “Conversation between Pirkko Saisio, Mia Spangenberg, and Niina Pollari,” in BOMB Magazine
• “Seeing and Unseen: Lowest Common Denominator by Pirkko Saisio,” review in Asymptote
• Two Lines Press Exclusive: Finnish Women Writers in Translation
• Lowest Common Denominator Reader’s Guide
• Request an Exam or Desk Copy