The Salt Letters

It is 1854, and with the certainty of land behind her, Sarah flees her home for the uncertainties of life in the new colony. In steerage, she joins the other unmarried women, where the horrors of their close confinement bring an unraveling of secrets no one can control. Sarah endures, longing for her mother's forgiveness and the sweetness of her cousin Richard's breath. As she draws closer to her new land, she becomes increasingly haunted by her own tale and the letter home she cannot write. Moving between the voyage in which pigs run through flooded living quarters to the hallucinatory visions induced by heat and doldrums, Christine Balint's astonishing debut novel brings us close to a time when the world was still a place to be discovered. Shortlisted for the Vogel Literary Award. Dazzling.... A meticulous history and a beautifully crafted fiction.... Compelling reading.--Brisbane Courier Mail

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 07/17/2001
ISBN: 9780393321609
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.37lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.38w x 0.49d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2001 pg. 603
Booklist 05/15/2001 pg. 1729
Library Journal 05/15/2001 pg. 160
Publishers Weekly 07/09/2001 pg. 45
New York Times 08/26/2001 pg. 14