Salt

A family saga that explores the relationship between people and the landscape in which they live, Jeremy Page’s atmospheric and lyrical debut novel is revelatory in its use of language and is the work of a significant new writer. Salt tells of a German airman who falls from the sky in 1945 and lands in the middle of a salt marsh in England. Goose, a local woman, digs him up and brings him home. After staying for just nine months, he vanishes in a makeshift boat, leaving Goose behind with a newborn daughter, Lil. Taught to read the clouds by her mother, Lil’s childhood is curious and strange, but when she becomes the object of two brothers’ desire, her life takes a tragic turn. Fifteen years later, it is Lil’s son, Pip, who attempts to make sense of his family’s intriguing history. Beguiled by the lovely Elsie who lives nearby, Pip grows up in the marsh like generations before him, but will their unfortunate past repeat itself?