Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Club Discussion Questions for The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

The Book of Salt

by Monique Truong
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (5):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 1, 2002, 272 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2004, 272 pages
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

In a book club? Subscribe to our Book Club Newsletter!

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

About The Book of Salt

"A lush, fascinating, expansive first novel about exile." — New York Times

"An irresistible, scrupulously engineered confection that weaves together history, art and human nature . . . Truong has, after much deliberation, cultivated a veritable feast." — Los Angeles Times

"[He] came to us through an advertisement that I had in desperation put in the newspaper. It began captivatingly for those days: 'Two American ladies wish . . .' " It was these lines in The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book that inspired The Book of Salt, a brilliant first novel by acclaimed Vietnamese American writer Monique Truong.

In Paris, in 1934, Bính has accompanied his employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, to the train station for their departure to America. His own destination is unclear: will he go with "the Steins," stay in France, or return to his native Vietnam? Bính has fled his homeland in disgrace, leaving behind his malevolent charlatan of a father and his self-sacrificing mother. For five years, he has been the live-in cook at the famous apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus. Before Bính's decision is revealed, his mesmerizing narrative catapults us back to his youth in French-colonized Vietnam, his years as a galley hand at sea, and his days turning out fragrant repasts for the doyennes of the Lost Generation.

Bính knows far more than the contents of the Steins' pantry: he knows their routines and intimacies, their manipulations and follies. With wry insight, he views Stein and Toklas ensconced in blissful domesticity. But is Bính's account reliable? A lost soul, he is a late-night habitué of the Paris demimonde, an exile and an alien, a man of musings and memories, and, possibly, lies. Love is the prize that has eluded him, from his family to the men he has sought out in his far-flung journeys, often at his peril. Intricate, compelling, and witty, the novel weaves in historical characters, from Stein and Toklas to Paul Robeson and Ho Chi Minh, with remarkable originality. Flavors, seas, sweat, tears — The Book of Salt is an inspired feast of storytelling riches.



Questions for Discussion

We hope the following questions will stimulate discussion for reading groups and provide a deeper understanding of The Book of Salt for every reader.

  1. "Gertrude Stein thinks it is unfathomably erotic that the food she is about to eat has been washed, pared, kneaded, touched, by the hands of her lover." How is food — and cooking — used as seduction in The Book of Salt? Compare the meals between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas with the meals Bính shares with Sweet Sunday Man and the man on the bridge. How is the reader also seduced or persuaded by these meals? Have you ever wooed someone with what you fed them?

     
  2. Bính says, "All my employers provide me with a new moniker, whether they know it or not . . . Their mispronunciations are endless, an epic poem all their own." How is Bính "lost in translation" in The Book of Salt? His interior monologue is lush and eloquent, but he can speak only a few words in French and English — what is the reader privy to that the other characters are not? Have you ever lived in a place where you weren't able to fully speak your mind?
     
  3. O Magazine said, "Salt, whether from 'kitchen, sweat, tears, or the sea' — is the secret of this perfectly rendered book." How is salt used as an ingredient in Bính's story?

     
  4. What does Gertrude Stein's (invented) manuscript, "The Book of Salt," have to do with The Book of Salt? Sweet Sunday Man tells Bính that Gertrude Stein's version "captured you perfectly." Could that be true? How do you imagine it reads?

     
  5. The Book of Salt begins with Bính waiting for the train that will lead the Steins to America. He seems to be facing a choice: "I thought that fate might have been listening in . . ." How did you expect the story to end? Did you think that Bính would leave Paris? Where would he go? How did the ending of the novel surprise you?

     
  6. Bính says, "Love is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched." Is love what Bính is looking for in Paris? He does finally get his much-desired photograph of Sweet Sunday Man, and Sweet Sunday Man also takes a rare item. How is love given and taken throughout the story? What are the characters left with? Have you kept (or stolen) artifacts of a past love?

     
  7. Bính says, "When I am telling the truth, why does it so often sound like a lie?" Do you believe Bính's stories? What is the importance of truth in The Book of Salt, and what are the consequences of lies? Do you ever tell stories differently than others remember them?

     
  8. When the Steins vacation outside Paris with Bính, he says, "What you probably do not know, Gertrude Stein, is that in Bilignin you and Miss Toklas are the only circus act in town. And me, I am the asiatique, the sideshow freak." How are the Steins and Bính aligned as outsiders? And how are they not? What is revealed in the Steins' response to Lattimore and Paul Robeson — how is it different from the Bilignin villagers' response to Bính?

     
  9. ". . . the Old Man's anger has no respect for geography…even here, he finds me." Does Bính seem "shamed" by his exile? Does he seem freed? How do we carry the judgment of our parents? What "voices" followed you when you first left your family home?

     
  10. Bính uses the color red often when describing his mother: "Red is luck that she had somehow saved, stored, and squandered on her youngest son." What other meanings does he give to red? Why does he cut his fingertips? Did Bính's vision of the gray pigeon in the park change your understanding of his mother, and of what Bính left behind in Vietnam?

     
  11. Bính says of the Steins' apartment, "This is a temple, not a home." Do you agree? Are you familiar with the works of Gertrude Stein or Alice B. Toklas? Has The Book of Salt changed the way you think of them?

     
  12. Who is the scholar-prince? Do you think Bính ever finds his? Did his mother find hers? How much do folk and fairy tales shape what we expect from romantic love? Do you have a certain myth in mind when you think of "ever after"?


For Further Reading

The following titles may be of interest to readers who enjoyed The Book of Salt.
Becoming Madame Mao
by Anchee Min
The Woman Who Knew Gandhi by Keith Heller
La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl by David Huddle
Grass Roof, Tin Roof by Dao Strom

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Mariner Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Prophet Song
    by Paul Lynch
    Paul Lynch's 2023 Booker Prize–winning Prophet Song is a speedboat of a novel that hurtles...
  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Choose an author as you would a friend

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.