THE BOOK OF SALT

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong - Halfway through my next book, and I'm still deciding on Book of Salt. It's a novel told in the first person by a young Vietnamese man, Binh, who is the cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris in the early 1930s. What I love are how he refers to them as "my Mesdames", when he considers salt,
"Salt, I thought. GertrudeStein, what kind? Kitchen, sweat, tears, or the sea. Madame, they are not all the same. Their stings, their smarts, their strengths, the distinctions among them are fine....",
and all the passages about food and cooking. I enjoyed the beginning and I enjoyed the ending, but it was slower going through the middle, and I considered putting it down. I'm glad I stuck it out because the ending was satisfactory, and the writing and the feeling once again became musical. This is perfect for the sophisticated reader, and if that sophisticated reader is a cook or an appreciator of flavors and textures, all the better. I wish there had been one small photo of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. I think I'll go find one now.