The Salt Letters

by Christine Balint

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393321606
• ISBN13: 9780393321609
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A terrific book

Balint's language and tone were pitch-perfect. A fascinating story, wonderful book.

A life ends on land and begins on sea

This book was one of the best I've ever read. I throughly enjoyed it and was very upset when it was over. Throughout the book, I wondered what it would be like to be in the girls shoes. To have to run away from a man whom her parents wish her to marry, and run off to Astralia of all places with her lover. It really made me sad to think that her love wasn't on the ship but happy to find out the secrets of the end. I especially loved how the author had her start letters to her family but never finish them, and then the resolve on how she came to fix that. I recomend this book highly to anyone intrested in historical fiction! I loved it!! I hope you do too!

Floating Through Words

The act of reading does not feel quite the same when one engages with the words of THE SALT LETTERS. There is a feeling of floating that gives Balint's novel a peculiar similarity to the ocean waves that flow through the book. A fascinating resurrection of a long-forgotten time, THE SALT LETTERS tells the story of Sarah, an unmarried immigrant woman traveling from England to Australia in the steerage of a sailing ship. The time is the mid-1800s, and travel by sea is not yet comfortable. Lest we forget this, Balint weaves together one uncomfortable situation after another until we can almost smell the unwashed women in the cabin and begin to check our own hair for lice. A matron keeps watch over the unmarried women on board and behind each woman is a story. As we learn of life on a vessel under sail, we also discover the simple secrets of the females, the secrets left over from their lives on land. There is a great deal to compliment about THE SALT LETTERS. The author is very young and the book is a huge accomplishment for someone of her age. She has a way of blending history and poetry so that her novel does not read as historical fiction usually does. She has written something different, a fresh sea air in the midst of current literature. Still, THE SALT LETTERS is not for everyone. The dreamy book floats - under sail as the ship - and will not appeal to those requiring plot-driven novels. Lovers of short stories and poetry will enjoy Balint's work as will those who love nautical history, stories of immigrants, and examinations of women's roles in society. One must be willing to daydream as one reads in order to connect with this novel, however, and a listless, unimaginative reader may not be able to hook into it at all.