The Salt Line - A Novel (Paperback, New edition)

Arnie Carrington, an ex-professor, has bought up a considerable amount of land on the Mississippi coast. True, all the buildings and islands and beachfront there have been devastated by hurricane Camille - but Arnie cherishes all these holdings, clinging to them jealously until the perfect buyer comes along. He won't sell to Frank Matteo, a local Mafioso; he abhors the big motel chain that's interested; he might consider the government, but only if they agree to preserve the area as park land. Meanwhile, however, there are personal complications for Arnie - who was a charismatic figure on campus in the Sixties and even in decline (near-bankrupt, widowered, impotent, suffering from writer's block) still has presence. Among the various women who continue to find him irresistible: the wife and daughter of an old friend and rival, Lex Graham. But Graham has a powerful weapon in this jealousy-quartet - because he knows Arnie's deep secret: that Arnie mercy-killed his terminally ill Wife and buried her on the island he now so closely guards. Still, even with dark secrets and reverses and Mafia hardball, Arnie valiantly maintains his god-like hold over his own little bit of reality. As always, Spencer can be counted on for fine writing - sentences that please and sometimes even awe. ("His entry was low-key, but his presence, his alert carriage and finely determined movement made an accumulation of itself like the widening ripple behind a smooth, high-masted cabin schooner with its motor cut to the last notch, coming into view with no wish of any sort, and no beauty average enough to need thinking of, superb.") But the characters here are more interesting in outline than in substance; their scenes together are often lifeless, too well-balanced and formal. And though Spencer has a strong, promising theme in this ambitious novel - secrets deferred, dreams ascendant - the execution is detached and diffuse, without the sharpness of her best short stories. (Kirkus Reviews)

"Spencer's refined, sensuous writing and laser insights inform this novel, as extraordinary as her other works." -- Publishers Weekly

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, tranquillity 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.

"Appealing... eloquent... it won't disappoint you." -- New York Times

General

Imprint:	Louisiana State University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Voices of the South
Release date:	November 1995
First published:	November 1995
Authors:	Elizabeth Spencer
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 17mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	320
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-8071-2029-3
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-8071-2029-4
Barcode:	9780807120293

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