"The Book of Salt is my desert island pick: the one book I refuse to live without. Truong’s narrative follows Bình, a gay Vietnamese cook in the 1930s who works for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris. Bình grapples with romantic love, French colonialism, and human connections, all through the interwoven streams of cooking and language. The salt of the ocean that he traverses and the salt in his Paris kitchen season this story to perfection! I keep returning to this novel over and over again, and its depth only increases with each read!"
Publisher Mariner Books
Publication Date 2004-06-15
Section Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Jasmine P.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780618446889
The legendary travel writer's thrilling and dangerous account of his journey across Africa
The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements while seeking his own place in the world. In a mesmerizing tale of yearning and betrayal, Monique Truong explores Paris from the salons of its artists to the dark nightlife of its outsiders and exiles. She takes us back to Binh's youthful servitude in Saigon under colonial rule, to his life as a galley hand at sea, to his brief, fateful encounters in Paris with Paul Robeson and the young Ho Chi Minh.
