At a certain point approaching the Mississippi coast, the air fills with the salt smell of the Gulf of Mexico. For all of the characters in Elizabeth Spencer's gracefully written novel, the salt line divides past and present, memory and longing, tranquility and danger. Crossing it places everyone in the chaotic path of Arnie Carrington, former professor and 1960s campus radical, who is on a crusade to restore the small Gulf Coast town of Notchaki after the devastation of Hurricane Camille. Threatening the enterprise is the arrival of Arnie's former colleague Lex Graham, who intends to use his wealth to squash his longtime rival's plans for the area's rejuvenation. The romantic, generous Carrington attracts a wide array of devotees -- Frank Matteo, a Mafia-connected restaurateur trying to go straight; Mavis, the pregnant girlfriend Frank has rejected; Dorothy, Lex's unstable wife, who wants to resume an ancient affair with Arnie; and Lex's cherished daughter Lucinda, a coquette who fancies Arnie's idealism. The characters in The Salt Line are rebuilding, reckoning with old ghosts, liberating repressed passions, and getting back into life. Elaborately and densely populated, masterfully plotted, and elegant in style, Spencer has woven a tale about the lines that bind, divide, and envelop people.
"Spencer has worked magic.... The reader rejoices in the good prose, smells the salt, sees light glimmering on the waves, and grows warm."
Toronto Globe and Mail
"Spencer's technique is so fluid, her prose so unpretentious and the various plots so engrossing that we may not notice we've read a modern morality tale until days later when fundamental questions raised in this challenging novel resurface to demand our attention."
Los Angeles Times
"The Salt Line is taut and trim, and it moves. A stream of action flows strongly beneath the acute observation and the psychological drama. It is, in short, all that a novel should be."
