The Salt Eaters

De: Toni Cade Bambara

Narrado por: Mia Ellis

A community of Black faith healers witness an event that will change their lives forever in this "hard-nosed, wise, funny" novel (Los Angeles Times).

Set in a fictional city in the American South, the novel also "inhabits the nonlinear, sacred space and sacred time of traditional African religion” (The New York Times Book Review).

Though they all united in their search for the healing properties of salt, some of them are centered, some are off-balance; some are frightened, and some are daring. From the men who live off welfare women to the mud mothers who carry their children in their hides, the novel brilliantly explores the narcissistic aspect of despair and the tremendous responsibility that comes with physical, spiritual, and mental well-being.

©1980 Toni Cade Bambara (P)2022 Tantor

Distractingly bad narration of a wonderful story

Title says it all - this is a wonderful, powerful story that I intend to simply read rather than listen to because the narration is SO BAD. I had to listen to chapter one twice to even understand what it was about because there is no sensible flow to the way the narrator speaks/reads.

Healing from Trauma

Toni Cade Bambara's first novel, The Salt Eaters, is a cross between African drums and American jazz. She has a good ear for capturing the urban voices of African Americans. The aural landscape is rhythmic and pulsates. She riffs words like notes. She explores the dilemma of a young woman named Velma Smith, driven to a suicide attempt by the pain of trauma of being a Black woman in a racist, sexist society. A community of female healers seeks to pull her back from the brink of oblivion.

Bambara's award-winning novel was ahead of its time. Her writing feels fresh because the issues she discusses are still relevant today. Her prose reminded me of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison. I laughed out loud because the language was so rich. I felt like I knew the characters. I would recommend her book.