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The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate
I actually meant to review this one last year but didn't get around to it. This review is coming mainly from memory so bear with me. Josie was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, though she was far from any large bodies of water she fall in love with it and made a career out of it. Josie is the only Black senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. In this way The Taste of Salt reminded me of Intuitionist by Whitehead. The novels are stylistically very different, however both feature a Black female protagonist in workforce positions that are predominantly held by men.

Since Josie is telling this story and because of much of who she is is defined by her chosen field, everything has a straightforward scientific analytical feel though the author is still able to give it a nice literary rhythm.

"I'm a scientist. I like to get to the bottom of things, to state the working hypothesis quickly. Narrative is not my specialty. But when I stop to think about it, in some ways, telling a story is like science. Trying to understand how a system works, what makes it function or not function, that's part of what a story does. Nothing is unrelated to the things that came before it. it's true of evolution and it's true of a family."

The quiet life Josie has carefully built is tested when her brother Tick is released from rehab for the second time. Josie must return to her childhood home in Cleveland, a place she rarely visits because of all the bad memories. The families experience with addiction began with the father. Josie shares her story, from marriage to growing up in a house with an unpredictable alcoholic father. She also gives the reader insight into the early years of her parents courtship and marriage. The latter I believe is the scientist in Josie, trying to pinpoint that one moment or event that would change the course of her parents lives and her own in the process. The city of Cleveland is an essential part of the story as well, it's describe and visualized with purpose from its years of promise to the lean ones.

Southgate skillfully explores how addiction can destroy a families dynamic. What stood out for me most was the strength and pain of Josie's voice. Taste of Salt had a quiet beauty that I loved and a rhythm worth getting lost in.

An excerpt

Sometimes I will visit publisher sites to see if there's anything finding. Today I found my way to Algonquin Books. Author Martha Southgate's newest novel The Taste of Salt will be released at the end of September. I've had a chance to read it already. One the things I loved about it is the main characters very unexpected occupation. The writing is beautiful and many scenes broke my heart. Life is dramatic enough, the author doesn't use any tricks, simply letting it all unfold. There will be a proper review closer to the release date. Chapter One of The Taste of Salt

Though as the title states this is about Southgate on The Help. The author wrote a piece about bestselling novel turned movie by Kathryn Stockett in the most recent EW magazine.

"The current issue of Entertainment Weekly (August 12) has a wonderful cover story on The Help, the blockbuster book that was made into a movie, opening soon. As part of the photo-heavy spread, Entertainment Weekly asked Algonquin author Martha Southgate, whose new novel The Taste of Salt publishes 9/27, to write about the book. Her piece is below. Be sure to pick up a copy of the magazine–one of our favorites around here–on newsstands now."

Algonquin Books was kind enough to rerun Southgate's article, and it's worth reading. I do wonder when Southgate or any reader who said they weren't going to read The Help changed their mind. What was the tipping point?

I am still firmly in the I will not read camp. I had many customers try to convince me otherwise but I won't budge. Part of the reason for this hard line in the sand has to do with working in a bookstore in the South and having White customers tell me every day I just must read The Help.

In my head, all I could think was no I don't. I refuse to believe the authenticity of Black voices created by a White author by White readers who don't read Black authors. These were my customers so I know what they read. Not a single White customer that requested The Help asked for a novel by a Black author.

Stockett's novel was liked by many of my Black customers as well. I was a bit more curious, but knowing that a Black author would never have this amount of success with the same story, I still can't bring myself to read The Help. Now I know how some Asian readers probably felt with the success of Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha.