jojireadsbooks 's review for:

The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

4.5

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martin luther king jr. is dead. so is malcolm x and fannie lou hamer. other beloved revolutionaries of the 60's are also either dead or at least on the run. the residents of claybourne, a southern town that is both rural in character but urban in its decay, struggle with what to do with themselves in the aftermath--to look back, or not? to be well, or not? 

 

THE SALT EATERS drops us right into the middle of the action without any hand holding. we begin and end in one day with velma henry, a local woman who is in the middle of a healing session at the local infirmary. however, readers flit between different characters and even different realms from one paragraph to the next almost as if we're spirits overseeing claybourne. the dreamy prose and structure demands your attention to slowly pull all of the little plot threads together. we find out: there's a carnival tonight, there's a government informant on the loose, the nuclear plant in the town over is surely poisoning everyone, the armory has been robbed, and there's rumors of an insurrection. however, readers are kept at arms length from the action and instead spend the majority of the time in the interior of our characters as they worry, ponder, and remember. 

 

i have to admit: i'm not sure i picked up everything that the salt eaters was putting down. it's definitely a novel that requires careful reading and revisiting, and it took me almost a month to finish it for this exact reason. it's a complex novel that has a lot of action going on in the background, but it isn't really plot forward, and i would not have guessed that this book is what it is based on the provided blurb. i am, however, so intrigued by the choice of setting and time that toni cade bambara chose. i feel like most books about revolutionaries or this time period set us in the middle of the height of the 60's actions, and i think bambara's choice to uncover the ugly and hurting aftermath once everything has either fizzled or fractured made this novel so compelling. THE SALT EATERS asks: what happens to the organizers once the protest signs have come down and the barricades are cleared from the streets? who will take care of them, and how will they be well?