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About
"[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. In Paris, 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 twenty-seven 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.
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Reviews
"The tone throughout is poignant, lightened by Bínhs subversive wit; for all his bitterness and resentment, he is a captivating narrator, as adept at describing Steins literary salon as the contents of Toklass kitchen…The narrative rings with emotional authenticity."
Publishers Weekly
"Truong provides a savory debut novel of unexpected depth and emotion."
Booklist
"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."
New York Times