Thirst For Salt

Thirst For Salt / Madelaine Luca / Tinhouse, March 2023 - $17 (Paperback)

Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt bilaterally reframes the way one might look at intimacy. On the one hand, we have the tendency to think of intimacy in the sphere of physicality and sensuality—neither of which is absent from this compelling novel. On the other hand, we have intimacy as Lucas explores it in an evermore refreshing way: intimacy as it relates to the temporal passage of a shared love and the memories we gain, lose, and seek to remember on the way. Thirst for Salt depicts the transformation of the self through the memory of the past; specifically, a summer spent on the beach of an Australian coastal town. 

A novel divided into three parts, Thirst for Salt is a beautifully written story that illuminates the complexities of family and motherhood, feelings of instability, inevitable existentialism, and the loss of identity in the pursuit of deep love and desire. Meeting the main subject of her future love affair on a beach the summer after graduating college, a young woman battles with self-exploration in a journey that feels all too familiar and still completely unique. Lucas crafts a indelible, voyeuristic story with moments for all readers to identify with, or at least find an escape into with the spectacular Thirst for Salt.

--Udonne Eke-Okoro