Thirst for Salt
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A heady story about a life-changing summer romance, perfect for fans of A Theatre for Dreamers and Sorrow & Bliss
'A love affair so richly and attentively imagined it carries the grace and gravity of memory itself.' Leslie Jamison
Our narrator is twenty-four years old when she and her mother arrive in the tiny coastal town of Sailors Beach. Their holiday, she hopes, will be a pause between her life as a student and whatever happens next. Summer stretches before her: unplanned, full of possibility. And into this space walks Jude. Finding herself pulled to this man twenty years her senior she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life.
Thirteen years later, she happens across a photo of Jude with a child. A photo that leaves her questioning choices she has made for herself. A photo that brings back memories of a summer that changed her forever.
A magnetic story of the complexities of desire, and a powerful reckoning with memory, loss and longing, Madelaine Lucas' debut novel reveals, with stunning, sensual immediacy the way the past can hold us in its thrall, shaping who we are and what we love.
'A mesmerizing portrait of a romance with graceful, seductive writing.' Bustle
A Bustle, LitHub, Debutiful, and NYLON Most Anticipated Book of 2023
A Goodreads Buzziest Book of the New Year * A DEBUTIFUL 'Best Book of 2023 Jan-June'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian writer Lucas's intelligent debut tracks a love affair between a young woman and an older man. The unnamed narrator, now 37, reflects on the "pause" in her life between graduating from college at 24 and "whatever would happen next." She recounts a seaside vacation with her mother from that time, when she meets a local named Jude, 42. Soon, the two are sleeping together, and after she returns to her apartment in Sydney, they stay in touch, and she visits Jude on weekends before deciding to quit her part-time bookselling job and move in with him. The two adopt a stray dog and spend months living in bliss, but when the narrator suspects Jude of having feelings for an older female friend, and he bristles at the idea of introducing the narrator to his mother, the narrator second-guesses her devotion to him. There's not much of a plot involving this well-trod story of a fractured love affair, but Lucas keenly captures the relationship's slow erosion, as well as the narrator's ability to make sense of her past while looking back on it. The author's psychological acuity will keep readers piqued.
