Summary and Reviews of The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

Media Reviews

The Los Angeles Times - Carmela Ciuraru Binh is deeply troubled (clearly more so as the novel goes on), yet he is oddly noble, determined to find a life of dignity for himself. That the account of his life story ultimately proves unreliable makes Binh no less memorable or compelling a figure. And it makes Truong's debut seem more impressive and ambitious than most contemporary first works of fiction, which often read like thinly fictionalized memoirs. This novel, however, displays its author's supple imagination on every page.

The New York Times - Christopher Benfey The story of the uprooted basket weaver is a parable for the kind of vessel that Monique Truong has fashioned in The Book of Salt. Against the odds, she has made unsettling art from precisely such exotic cuttings and transplantings.

The Miami Herald ...seductive tale of exile, memory, sex, identity, language, the sins of colonialism and the social and cultural politics of food.

The New York TImes Book Review ...fascinating first novel.. Truong's birthplace...is evoked here with piercing yearning and authenticity.

Kirkus Reviews In a dazzling if sometimes daunting debut, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas's Vietnamese cook tells his story-and theirs.... A tour de force. Truong should take literate America by storm.

Booklist Margaret Flanagan Using salt as a metaphor for food, sweat, tears and the sea, and interweaving the narrative with suggestions of ingredients, recipes, and exotic dishes, Truong provides a savory debut novel of unexpected depth and emotion.

Publishers Weekly A mesmerizing narrative voice, an insider's view of a fabled literary household and the slow revelation of heartbreaking secrets contribute to the visceral impact of this first novel.