The Salt Fields by Stacy D. Flood

From the publisher: On the day that Minister Peters boards a train from South Carolina heading north, he has nothing left but ghosts: the ghost of his murdered wife, the ghost of his drowned daughter, the ghosts of his father and his grandmother and the people who disappeared from his town without trace or explanation.

This beautifully written novella is a close study of the interior life of a man who has had to compartmentalize all his various tragedies. Some are particular to him; some are sadly endemic to being a southern Black man in 1947.

Some things we lose should be irreplaceable, and the thorns of the past or the future should always pierce the skin.

Stacy D Flood, The Salt Fields

If you want plot, there’s not going to be much for you; it’s a ridealong with the protagonist on a train ride from his lifelong home along the South Carolina coast toward the promised(ish) land of the north. He’s not even sure of his destination—just away from the ghosts that haunt his days.

I was longing to pass the time until the train until the train until the train actually moved us away, as if, at any moment, a cop or spirit or storm could come and trap us here in a pile of bruises or thick mud or regret.

Stacy D Flood, The Salt Fields

The book resonates with a regret that Minister can’t quite articulate, although his observations of the world around him are acute. This is a rational man trying to deal with an irrational world, and his coping style is one of dissociation, to the detriment of himself and those he loves.

Mass graves didn’t surprise us. We believed in horror, and horrible men.

Stacy D Flood, The Salt Fields

The style is elliptical at times, where the meanings of the interactions must be guessed at. Minister will tell you, in this first person account, of his interactions, of the facts, of what may be seen, but not always what is meant.

But I suspected it wasn’t just one thing, one argument, one slight, one memory, one word. We’re human beings. It rarely is one thing.

Stacy D Flood, The Salt Fields

The other characters are deftly drawn: the disillusioned former soldier, the hyperactive man-of-the-world, and the elegant woman with an agenda. The protagonist only spends a short time with them, but they affect the remainder of his life in a way that’s surprising, given the tragedies that he endured before he met them.

An affecting, wistful, and tragic story of a life of alienation and of the consequences of choice, The Salt Fields may haunt you with its ghosts.

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