Salt: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A haunting story that leaves you unfulfilled
Review: A novel beautifully written, very lyrical but yet a bit depressing. I found it very educational to read of life that depended on the land, however, it took me to a place that I thought was a very sad time for women to live in.

Rating:
Summary: This book keeps you wondering
Review: Although Salt starts out slow, it picks up pace and I could not put it down. One of the main characters, John, is so self-centered it made me crazy. It was alright for him to do as he pleased, but Anna put up with so much. The children needed her. I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone who has not read it, but you will love it. Just too bad someone didn't do John in earlier in the book.....

Rating:
Summary: When life moved at a slower pace...
Review: An interesting story that follows a woman throughout her lifetime. There was something very powerful about this novel that I can't quite put my finger on. It brings a longing for simple pleasures and the closeness of family. Fans of Fannie Flagg should enjoy this novel.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best I have ever read
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A tale of grace and lyricism
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best I have ever read
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Lingers with Truths and Insights
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A rare woman trapped in a homely time and place
Review: Young Anna Stockton's childhood ends when she is sent to work for a well-to-do family. Her employers' tragedy ends that job, but not before Anna has been exposed to another world where books abound, knowledge is prized, and the love between a husband and wife is tender and unabashed. Anna is never the same.

Back home in Faith, North Carolina, she meets John Bayley, a twice-widowed farmer, a man driven to prove himself on more than one level. John knows a good thing when he sees it and sets out to win Anna. Although ultimately, she gives in to her passion for John, Anna knows she could be giving up her chance at the higher kinds of fulfillment she needs.

At first glance, Anna might seem to be an ordinary North Carolina farmer's wife near the turn of the last century, only prettier. Her hands are toughened from hard work; her countenance is stern yet compassionate. She sacrifices for the good of her children. But there is much more. Anna possesses a depth that her peers seem to lack -- a depth witnessed by a precious few of those who know her. She thinks more, understands profoundly, and secretly longs for what might have been had she not married. She incurs John's displeasure and risks ostracism by abandoning the church. John occasionally glimpses his wife's mysterious core, and he both fears and resents what he does not understand.

Salt is a fascinating study of characters removed from us as much by mindset as by years. Still, both Anna and John possess the flaws and the virtues that render their struggles timeless.