Love Like Salt
A Memoir
- Author
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CHOSEN BY MAGGIE O'FARRELL IN THE GUARDIAN AS ONE OF HER BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'It's a slice of a life . . . a complex, intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, rather lyrical book' -Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
'A moving treatise on inheritance, not just of a disease like cystic fibrosis, but of our attitudes to living and loving, our sense of cultural and familial landscape, and how these intangibles pass down through generations. Stevenson picks apart her life like a strand of DNA to uncover just how we become the sum of our parts' Daily Telegraph
'A beautiful memoir . . . [Stevenson] is a novelist and a translator and her memoir is about translation in the larger sense. Translating the world is what we all do but she reminds us that one can hope - with a mind as intricately well read and original as hers - to translate misfortune; to absorb and see beyond it . . . Stevenson makes of poetry, fiction and philosophy a protective shawl for her story . . . Although intense she has a carefree wit' Kate Kellaway, Observer
'Motherhood, medicine and music are explored with a spellbinding intensity. It is a beautifully written and entirely honest memoir... Stevenson acknowledges the pain and overwhelming melancholy of being the mother of a sick child but she also manages to wholeheartedly celebrate the life of her family, who are still determined to live as luminous a life as possible, to make a kind of poetry out of the everyday' Eithne Farry Sunday Express
'Stevenson is a writer and musician, and her memoir is distinguished by its ravishing prose and sensitive understanding of the role that loss, misfortune and grief play in the story of our lives' Jane Shilling, Daily Mail
'Love Like Salt is a human triumph ... it's all told in the most mesmerising of words, no adjective is extraneous and Love Like Salt flows with poetic precision ... Ultimately, Love Like Salt follows in the hallowed footsteps of Helen MacDonald's brilliant H is for Hawk or Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love. These are not misery memoirs but reminders that life comes in all shades - that in the darkest moments, beauty and humour can be found' Francesca Brown, Stylist
'Did Clara taste salty when I kissed her? She did. She tasted of mermaids, of the sea.'
Love Like Salt is a deeply affecting memoir, beautifully and intelligently written. It is about mothers and daughters, music and illness, genes and inheritance, writing and story-telling. It is about creating joy from the hand you've been dealt and following its lead - in this case to rural France, where the author and her family lived for seven years. And back again.
'I had always written, and until the birth of Clara I wrote for a living. Once I knew the Cystic Fibrosis gene had unfolded itself in our daughter's body, like a paper flower meeting water, I felt that to write, even if I had had time, or been able, would have been to squander a kind of power which was needed for tending and nurturing. Every moment became a moment in which I protected my baby. Some of it I did in secret, like a madwoman muttering spells. I thought of her as a candle, cupping my hand around her.
A beautifully written memoir, in the vein of H is for Hawk and The Last Act of Love, about motherhood, music and living the best life you can, even in the shadow of illness.
'It's a slice of a life . . . a complex, intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, rather lyrical book' -Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
'A moving treatise on inheritance, not just of a disease like cystic fibrosis, but of our attitudes to living and loving, our sense of cultural and familial landscape, and how these intangibles pass down through generations. Stevenson picks apart her life like a strand of DNA to uncover just how we become the sum of our parts' Daily Telegraph
'A beautiful memoir . . . [Stevenson] is a novelist and a translator and her memoir is about translation in the larger sense. Translating the world is what we all do but she reminds us that one can hope - with a mind as intricately well read and original as hers - to translate misfortune; to absorb and see beyond it . . . Stevenson makes of poetry, fiction and philosophy a protective shawl for her story . . . Although intense she has a carefree wit' Kate Kellaway, Observer
'Motherhood, medicine and music are explored with a spellbinding intensity. It is a beautifully written and entirely honest memoir... Stevenson acknowledges the pain and overwhelming melancholy of being the mother of a sick child but she also manages to wholeheartedly celebrate the life of her family, who are still determined to live as luminous a life as possible, to make a kind of poetry out of the everyday' Eithne Farry Sunday Express
'Stevenson is a writer and musician, and her memoir is distinguished by its ravishing prose and sensitive understanding of the role that loss, misfortune and grief play in the story of our lives' Jane Shilling, Daily Mail
'Love Like Salt is a human triumph ... it's all told in the most mesmerising of words, no adjective is extraneous and Love Like Salt flows with poetic precision ... Ultimately, Love Like Salt follows in the hallowed footsteps of Helen MacDonald's brilliant H is for Hawk or Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love. These are not misery memoirs but reminders that life comes in all shades - that in the darkest moments, beauty and humour can be found' Francesca Brown, Stylist
'Did Clara taste salty when I kissed her? She did. She tasted of mermaids, of the sea.'
Love Like Salt is a deeply affecting memoir, beautifully and intelligently written. It is about mothers and daughters, music and illness, genes and inheritance, writing and story-telling. It is about creating joy from the hand you've been dealt and following its lead - in this case to rural France, where the author and her family lived for seven years. And back again.
'I had always written, and until the birth of Clara I wrote for a living. Once I knew the Cystic Fibrosis gene had unfolded itself in our daughter's body, like a paper flower meeting water, I felt that to write, even if I had had time, or been able, would have been to squander a kind of power which was needed for tending and nurturing. Every moment became a moment in which I protected my baby. Some of it I did in secret, like a madwoman muttering spells. I thought of her as a candle, cupping my hand around her.
A beautifully written memoir, in the vein of H is for Hawk and The Last Act of Love, about motherhood, music and living the best life you can, even in the shadow of illness.
- Published: Feb 02 2017
- Pages: 304
- 198 x 129mm
- ISBN: 9780349007786
Press Reviews
- The Daily Telegraph
Stevenson's baby daughter Clara failed to thrive, leaving doctors perplexed. 'Is her skin salty?' asked a South African man. Furtively, Stevenson licked her daughter, who tasted 'of mermaids, of the sea'. That folk wisdom accurately diagnosed Clara's cystic fibrosis, chronicled in this fine memoir. It is unfashionably stronger of reportage than on confession.
Jane Shilling
Daily MailStevenson is a writer and musician, and her memoir is distinguished by its ravishing prose and sensitive understanding of the role that loss, misfortune and grief play in the story of our lives.
- Bookseller, 'editor's choice'
Affecting and beautifully written maternal memoir which muses on music and illness, genes and inheritance, writing and storytelling . . . an ultimately uplifting book about resilience and living the best life you can, even in the shadow of illness; and creating joy from the hand you've been dealt
Julie Myerson
An extraordinarily beautiful and mysterious book about parenthood and the random blows that life deals us, as well as the quest to belong, the life of the mind and, ultimately, love. And what glorious prose: Helen Stevenson has a conjuror's knack of seeming to throw everything in, and creating not a jumble, but something that makes absolute, awe-inspiring sense
- Good Housekeeping
A touching memoir about motherhood and illness that teaches powerful lessons about resilience and finding joy where you can
- Psychologies, 'Book of the Month'
Motherhood, medicine and music are explored with a spellbinding intensity. This memoir is beautifully written and entirely emotionally honest . . . a celebration of a family who are determined to live as luminous a life as possible, to make a kind of poetry out of the everyday
- Daily Telegraph
This memoir is full of seeming tricks from fairy stories that turn out to have the weight of science behind them
- Irish Examiner/ Scottish Herald
This is a beautiful love letter to her family from an intelligent woman who has had to dig deep just to survive
- Daily Telegraph
A moving treatise on inheritance, not just of a disease like cf, but of our attitudes to living and loving, our sense of cultural and familial landscape, and how these intangibles pass down through generations. Stevenson picks apart her life like a strand of DNA to uncover just how we become the sum of our parts'
Eithne Farry
Sunday ExpressIn Love Like Salt, motherhood, medicine and music are explored with a spellbinding intensity. It is a beautifully written and entirely honest memoir...There is a lovely lean towards magical thinking in the form of boundless hope, the healing hands of a friend, the wish for a miracle ... Stevenson acknowledges the pain and overwhelming melancholy of being the mother of a sick child but she also manages to wholeheartedly celebrate the life of her family, who are still determined to live as luminous a life as possible, to make a kind of poetry out of the everyday.
- Stylist
This memoir is a richly intelligent journey though motherhood, music and art that explores how to live well when life deals out cards you don't want
Jenny McCartney
Mail on SundayLove Like Salt is a portrait of mothers and children, of a daughter's illness and how it rearranges relationships in unexpected ways. The author weaves in reflections on music and mortality, France and England, religion and secularism, and on the protective love that a mother feels for a sick child . . . Stevenson has written an honest, poetic, affecting book that will speak to any reader
Kate Kellaway
ObserverThis is a beautiful memoir . . . [Stevenson] is a novelist and a translator and her memoir is about translation in the larger sense. Translating the world is what we all do but she reminds us that one can hope - with a mind as intricately well read and original as hers - to translate misfortune; to absorb and see beyond it . . . Stevenson makes of poetry, fiction and philosophy a protective shawl for her story . . . Although intense she has a carefree wit
Francesca Brown
StylistLove Like Salt is a human triumph ... it's all told in the most mesmerising of words, no adjective is extraneous and Love Like Salt flows with poetic precision ... Ultimately, Love Like Salt follows in the hallowed footsteps of Helen MacDonald's brilliant H is for Hawk or Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love. These are not misery memoirs but reminders that life comes in all shades - that in the darkest moments, beauty and humour can be found
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
It's a slice of a life . . . a complex, intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, rather lyrical book
Sam Baker
The PoolA touching memoir about motherhood and illness