Salt

by Isabel Zuber

Book Overview

Anna Stockton was a bright, imaginative child exulting in a rare freedom in the mountains of North Carolina who grew into a young woman possessed of romantic yearnings and a great love of books.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312281331
• ISBN13: 9780312281335
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Salt worth savoring

This is a beautiful book. I've started so many bestsellers lately and stopped halfway through them, disappointed in both the book and myself for my lack of persistance. I was starting to be afraid that I had lost the knack of reading. SALT restored my faith in my own ability to become immersed in a book and in the fact that there are still books which can totally entrance, amaze, delight, and humble the reader. SALT is the story of a woman who I would have dearly loved to have known. She had a life that was far from satisfying and yet she found beauty almost everywhere she looked and was a blessing to everyone around her. Thank you, Isabel Zuber, for this beautiful blessing of a book!

One of the best I have ever read

I read this novel over a year ago and I can't stop thinking about it and how beautiful it is. I compare everything I read to it and so far, all other fiction has come up short. I didn't write a review at the time I read it, but I feel that it deserves one if I'm still thinking about how much it touched me over a year later. It is beautifully written, the characters are well developed, and the story is interesting and touching and real. I highly recommend it.

Lingers with Truths and Insights

This novel is one of those rare reading experiences that will linger with its truths and insights for years to come. One of the things I loved most was the way it didn't hit you in the face with overwrought drama, but instead allowed you to sink into it slowly. Anna, the main character, was immediately someone I wanted to know more about and Isabel Zuber gave me time to know her well and left me wishing for her as a companion for life. Anna's ability to keep her real self intact despite the repression of her marriage inspired me - sometimes I forgot about the harshness of her life and was surprised when the story reminded me about what little she had other than her own integrity. For me the book was about a difficult life lived with dignity and I was very inspired by its message.

Novel a Story Endurance

Isabel Zuber's first novel makes most contemporary novels feel a little light-weight by comparison, like quilts without much batting in them. Even Robert Morgan's much ballyhooed GAP CREEK, an Oprah selection, feels threadbare by comparison. Zuber's novel is, on the other hand, a well stitched patchwork that has a satisfying heft to it. It pieces together the story of Anna Stockton Bayley's life, from childhood to deathbed and does so with authenticity and generosity. If at times some of the characters seem hard to keep up with, the central story of Anna and her husband John always keeps its focus and intensity. Whereas GAP CREEK's Julie, for example, is limited to her one year of marriage and never-ending hardship in Morgan's novel, Zuber's heroine must live through all the seasons of a woman's life, giving her a multi-dimensional poignancy that Morgan's character never achieves. These two Appalachian women, from two contemporary Appalachian fiction-writers and poets (Zuber is also a published poet) inhabit different worlds, Zuber's Anna a world of both suffering and lyrical beauty, Morgan's Julie a world of near unbroken drudgery and sorrow. Zuber's book deserves the accolades heaped upon GAP CREEK. It is the richer novel, the one that gives real scope and vision to a region and its people. I hope it receives the acclaim it deserves.

One of My Favorite Books of All Time

This book is absolutely amazing. It's the kind of book that I want to tell everyone to read. The writing is pure poetry and the plot is so incredible...by the last 3/4 of the book, I was completely overtaken to see what happened. You may find it a bit hard to get into, but once you're past the first 10 pages you will not be able to put it down. This is a debut novel but it reads like one written by a seasoned pro...it's so carefully crafted and well-done that I could hardly believe it. All I can say is PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. You won't regret it. Halfway through I knew it was going to be one of the best books I had ever read and when I read the last page, I was certain of this.