Salt Lick

by Lulu Allison

Food production has moved overseas. The countryside is empty and once again wild. The rural economy has collapsed and people have no choice but to move to the cities. The population drifts away, towns and villages are abandoned. It isn’t dystopian, but it is further down the wrong road.

Jesse is eight. His family, moved on once by the sea flooding their coastal home, try to cling to their livelihoods in a small village. Soon, there is no work left; the family make the same necessary choice as so many others and a new life begins in London.

Decades pass. Isolde, now in her thirties, grew up in a children’s home that made her tough, resilient and uncertain. Her life is stalled, happiness elusive. She decides, finally, to learn about herself, and the formative event in early childhood - the death of her mother in a terrorist attack. She begins by visiting her mother’s killer in prison, to discover why it was that Stella died, crushing the body of her small daughter as she bled out on a city street so many years before.

In the prison, Isolde discovers that her mother’s death wasn’t as grimly straightforward as she had believed. To learn more, she decides she must head out of the city to find a group of off-grid idealists, New Agrarians living self-sufficiently on a farm somewhere in the Suffolk countryside. She leaves London on foot, walking the abandoned A12, sheltering in houses with buddleias growing through broken windows, faded carpets shot with bindweed, foxes in the dining rooms.

She meets Lee, a young runaway from one of the White Towns, white nationalist settlements that scatter the country like a dangerous rash. Isolde takes Lee under her wing and together they travel on to find the farm. Lee, who wears a ribbon around his neck to hide the tattoo of his provenance, is sheltered by the group from the threat of his family, bent on taking him back. Isolde’s past, the looping connection between her and Jesse, and the possibility of a different future is revealed.

The book has a chorus, the dreamy herd voice of feral cows, who are impatient with humans for their cruelty and lack of ability to find contentment, but they watch over Jesse, Isolde and Lee with benevolent care, understanding their lives as part of a bigger story that ravels and unravels endlessly over time.

Genres: Fiction, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Adult

374 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2021

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the rightward political shift over the past decade in the UK, US, and elsewhere, it’s unsurprising to see a growing number of writers try their hand at a novel set in the near-future with a dystopian bent. Lulu Allison’s second novel does this more successfully than most, with a fantastic premise, well drawn characters, and an engaging story. The preachy second half didn’t bother me as much as it did others, but it’s true that my interest gradually waned after the very compelling set up. I may be alone in appreciating the cow chorus - it lent an eerie quality to the story and I would have liked to see the cows make more frequent appearances as bystanders and observers. I would read a sequel to this.

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022

When the Women's Prize longlist was announced last week, this was the one that jumped out at me as a must read, and I was lucky to find one of Waterstones' last copies in my local branch (Unbound are now reprinting the book, so it shouldn't be hard to find for long).

This book is set in a dystopian near future Britain in which rural communities have largely been abandoned by the city elite who run the country, and have been left to flooding and wild woodland. There are two main strands of the story, the links between which become clear about halfway through. Both are frequently interrupted by a chorus that gives a collective voice to the now feral cows that wander through the landscape.

The first strand follows Jesse, a boy whose parents try to remain in a village community which is increasingly unviable. Jesse finds a friend in Mister Maliks, a stray puppy, where their explorations of the local woodland run into a white supremacist vigilante group.

The second strand follows Isolde, a city girl brought up in an orphanage after her mother was killed by a bomb, as she walks out of London into East Anglia seeking knowledge of her mother's life, with a little help from the man she visits in prison who has been found guilty of planting the bomb.

I found the whole thing rather a compelling read, all too believable in today's fractured political landscape. Highly recommended.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book due to its longlisting for the 2022 Women’s Prize although I was aware of the book as my twin brother was one of a number of people who crowdfunded its publication by Unbound.

And I will say up front that I strongly hope that the book makes at least the shortlist

The book is set in an all too plausible dystopian near-future - with Britain split into its constituent parts and with a government rather overwhelmed by the consequences of climate change, globalisation and some deadly flu pandemics and effectively encouraging the population to congregate into the large cities where they subsist on entirely imported food while the countryside goes to waste (including due to green policies both seemingly adopted too late but also with an almost complete disregard for their impact for those who live in rural communities - policies which could pretty well be taken from the Cameron Conservative and Corbyn Labour/Green Party manifestoes combined). At the same time, while those who remain in the countryside may be committed to a traditional and in their minds ethical approach to self-sustainability, a perhaps more influential non-City series of factions in the remaining towns (think ex Red Wall “left behind” towns - or those which voted heavily for Brexit) wraps themselves in a white-only (other than the red cross of St George) tradition - forming semi militia, quasi-fascist settlements taking their names from Drake or Boudica.

The story is told through two alternating storylines - and the background I have set out above emerges naturally from them (with only the minimum necessary amount of explicit exposition) in the first half of the book.

The first beings with a young boy Jesse who lives with his parents on the crumbling Suffolk Coast (think Dunwich or Sizewell) in one of the few holdout rural communities (before the real cut off of the country begins). Jesse befriends an abandoned dog while the community is disturbed by a group of white nationalists who move nearby. This section is a little coming-of-age in nature at times but cleverly captures through Jesse’s eyes the dilemmas the community faces, as well as the recurring debate between his parents about the viability of resisting the lure of the City.

The second (which we gradually realise is set much later - post the definitive move to the Cities) features Isolde. As a child many years previously her mother was killed and she was injured in a bomb attack by a group of eco or left wing activists and she then grew up in the care system. Under a slightly twisted restorative justice act she is entitled to observe the on-going incarceration of (and if she chooses interact with) the perpetrator of the crime - and taking this up for the first time as a way to understand more of her mother (a need exacerbated by her newly single status and a recent loss of a pregnancy) unexpectedly points her at a commune in the countryside where it seems her mother and her attacker knew each other.

I found the first half of the book deeply impressive. The storylines are very different but I found myself invested in both - enjoying understanding more of both Jesse and Isolde’s lives and the state of the England in which both live.

Laced through both accounts is - unusually - a Greek chorus of feral cows.

As both storylines continue (the first moving forwards more rapidly in time to Jesse’s young adult life, the second progressing more linearly as Jesse walks the old A12 to the farm) we see, initially through some rather nicely subtle textual overlaps (for example images of a beach and sea) how the two are linked.

Unfortunately I found that my enthusiasm for the book was a little tempered by the second half. Both accounts become largely around a relatively cliched back-to-roots, The Good Life, sustainable country living tale. And this I felt rather crowded out the (to me far more fascinating and far more unique) dystopian elements. Further while having largely already gathered the storylines intersection and how as a consequence the Jesse one in particular would play out I also found that my interest in the human elements in each story waned.

And I was not sure what to make of the Bovine Chorus. I live (and store all my small press books) in a converted East Anglian barn which for decades was used to register the local cows and which has a small group of cows around 25 metres from my front gate (see image) - I am always up for a good cow story especially one that features an East Anglian barn. But I was not sure that the chorus really enhanced my enjoyment and I did end up slightly skimming these parts.

Overall an interesting contender but for me Brian slightly a game of two halves. Just in fact like a pantomime cow.

[Eric Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sometimes feel skeptical about fiction set in the near future which presents how our society might devolve and disintegrate in dystopian ways. Is this really what will happen? Ishiguro cannily avoided going into much detail about his projected future in “Klara and the Sun” by showing it through a limited perspective. Alternatively, one of the reasons Diane Cook's “The New Wilderness” didn't work for me was because the way her society had reorganized itself due to dwindling resources felt unrealistic. Lulu Allison takes an inventive method with her narrative which describes a near future England with coastal erosion, populations concentrated in cities, racist/homophobic clans, increasingly devastating pandemics and a United Kingdom that's disbanded. One could easily argue that this is only a lightly exaggerated version of the country as it currently exists. Given the way things so rapidly changed because of the recent pandemic it sometimes feels like the author is commenting on what's happening now: “all of them, young and old, know that the process of getting back to normal is still a long way off. It is called up like a spell, or a prayer, the earnest expression of a shared desire that is experienced now mostly as a matter of faith rather than expectation.” The story shows a gradual acknowledgement that whether we like it or not our society has been substantially altered because of viruses and climate change. Therefore, a collective desire for a return to a simpler recent past is a wish that probably won't ever be fulfilled.

Alongside the primary story about a rural boy named Jesse and a young woman from London named Isolde, there are poetic descriptions of the transforming landscape and a chorus of feral cows who collectively comment upon the action. In this way the author creatively and energetically presents individuals searching for a sense of home and communities struggling to decide how to organize themselves within an increasingly strained environment.
Read my full review of Salt Lick by Lulu Allison at LonesomeReader

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

The cities, for all their brash mystery, seem certain, knowable in comparison to the great, untethered stretches and strange possibilities of the lands and empty towns between. The density of people in London keeps most to a consensus that acts as guidance. But in other places, the continuity is broken. People are making new sense of the world. Some, like the White Towns, are re-making from the old, building on fears that were already festering before. Others make new systems. What was once floors of easy-credit consumer goods, shopping malls, can become mausoleums. Letters that no one could read become wordless spells. All it takes is the absence of other influences, one imagination on a loop, reinforcing its manifestation into a pattern. Or the ideas of a persuasive and charismatic leader adored by those looking to follow a design invented by another, looking for fate rather than creation. This way, slowly all our stories get rewritten.

Salt Lick is the second novel by artist Lulu Allison, and like her first was crowd-funded and published by Unbound (https://unbound.com/books/salt-lick/), and I am delighted to have been one of the super-patrons, my copy of the novel coming with a tin-and-wood "wish cow".



The preface opens on the Suffolk coast, eroded by the tides:

Water trickles through gullies in the brick, loosening bonds that have held the house together for nearly three hundred years. Rain and sea meet in the crooks, the filigree channels. Salt and fresh water seep into the brick and mortar. One wall has collapsed, fraction by fraction becoming sand, lulled back and forth by the waves. Other buildings, that once marked the back of the village before it gave way to fields, stand like rotten teeth in a mouth slack with the futility of further resistance. A church rises from the sea, a small, solid island of grey rock. On the spire, a spike of metal, a weather vane with the only remaining arm pointing west, as if reminding the sea that it still has work to do. This way. The whole of England waits to be quenched.

The novel is set in a near-future/alternative UK, not so much a dystopia as a possible future. As food production moves overseas, the countryside is increasingly abandoned as people move to cities, leaving the land the preserve of a few souls clinging on to the old ways of life, although these range from back-to-nature communes to white-nationalist settlements, and of feral cows who provide a Greek-chorus to the narrative:

Chorus
we too live
with the reek of death

we always have,
since your bells, your fences, your briar walls, your hunger, your taste for our flesh, your taking of our horns,
your docile planning for our every move, your dole out of our fattening, yielding, enriching food, your fatty, pushy, plumpy, dozy medicines

you think we do not know it, smell it, hear it, taste it
you think because you take us away to kill us that it is hidden?

our children?
our dear-hearted old mothers, forced to leak and mourn?

Although originally conceived some years ago, the novel is very resonant in our post-Brexit, post-Covid, Black Lives Matter world, with Allison's imagined world featuring labour shortages, white nationalism, and two pandemics. The knock-on effect of the flight to the cities has, amongst its impacts, the collapse of the landed gentry:

The economic decline of the countryside slid in first to the fields and farmlands, then to the villages, the market towns. Workforces and wage offers no longer matched and so the workers disappeared. For a while, for the well-heeled, little changed. Marshal kept up his flatteringly matey friendships with the wealthy of the parish. The men, encountering their own physicality only in the pampered confines of a gym, were drawn to his way of treating them as casually manly equals. All customers spoke of his impeccable reputation for quality. Though increasingly, at the golf clubs and spas, people muttered about the economic climate. The gin and tonics were knocked back between head shakes and bluster, bitter soliloquies about betrayal. Hand-in-fist together, planning national strategies that best served them, the rural wealthy and the landed gentry were outraged to discover that they no longer had the ear of government.
 
Chunks of ice clinked against comfortingly hefty glass in the tremor of a suddenly bankrupt hand. During the chaos of the pandemic, the pattern of wealth in the country shifted. Over time, the losses increased, the economic climate became harder still. Some of the rich remained rich. Some did not. There were heart attacks and suicides. The gentleman farmers, astonishingly quickly found that all they had to bargain with was the long habit of association with those that ruled the country. Friendship can go a long way, in individual cases; some of those bonds survived the fall from grace, but it was the developers in the towns who were courted. What was the wealth of a landowner when no one wanted land?
 
On which the bovine chorus comments: 

over time
all will fade
die
and grow again
 
this is the meaning of natural order

your time comes to a close
  
yes in many ways you spent it well
that was a time, was it not?
 
but think what you could have done with such gifts

The novel is told in the present-tense, giving the text an immediacy that contrasts neatly with the narration that spans many years - indeed it gradually becomes clear that the novel's two main strands are set many years apart.

The story's perspective alternates between two main characters whose connection also gradually becomes clearer:

- Jesse, who was brought up on the Suffolk coast, and whose family were one of the last holdouts in their village before moving, reluctantly, to the city

- Isolde whose mother died when she was a small child in a terrorist bomb, one which Isolde survived shielded by her mother's body, an attach blamed on a eco-social movement, the Claimants, but actually a false-flag attack

Isolde, now in her 30s, decides to go in search of the community where her mother once lived, walking along what was once the A12 (private cars are now increasingly outlawed, which works in the cities but causes obvious issues in the countryside), where she meets the third main character Lee, who is fleeing from the White Town (a closed nationalist brethren) where he grew up.

Isolde and Lee find her mother's old community, where she is welcomed as the lost child, finally restored to the back-to-nature lifestyle where she belongs. But part of the novel's strength is that while it clearly has a lot of sympathy for a simpler, country lifestyle, it allows Isolde, a city girl born and bred, to find the whole thing artificial, and the community sanctimonious:

The city, the world, reality, it can't be escaped, There is an ugliness that surely can't be coyly covered with hand-made stitches or flavoured with herbs grown all year round in pretty pots tucked in all the corners of a garden. There is hatred and loss and danger. At least here in the city, there is no pretence.

And the bucolic countryside is also the preserve of Lee's former family, who come looking for him, their "ancient" rituals which connect them with the land actually derived from a chance find at Jarrolds:

On their chests, bizarrely buttoned on at each corner using hand, stitched holes for what they named Donning the Flag, an oblong of white with a red cross emblazoned across it, the span extended along the edges to make a variant of the swastika, So much meaning put into that securement, that act of attaching fabric to a shirt carefully primed with buttons scavenged from a department store in Norwich fourteen years before. So much invented value had been put into that absurd moment; boys getting their buttons when they got their tattoos. Grown men and women crying when their sons attached the flag for the first time; some men experience a tightening of the throat each time they put the Rag onto their chests. A ritual come to such power in only fourteen years. A ritual that gained its form because a bag of buttons from a haberdashery department in an abandoned store in Norwich had been taken on a whim, in case by sheer volume, they should turn out to be useful. No matter that to others it looks foolish, like a nursery bib. The ritual is made.

Ultimately a moving and redemptive tale but one with balance and an edge.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up due to its inclusion on the long list for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which is a bit strange given that I decided when the list was published that I wouldn’t read any more of it (I had read 4 of them already and was standing at one I really enjoyed, two I didn’t like and one I didn’t finish, so I wasn’t full of enthusiasm). However, this one seemed to be generating some interesting comments from friends on Goodreads and I thought it sounded like a book I would enjoy.

And I did enjoy a lot of things about this book. Just not everything.

The novel is set in a kind of “possible future UK”. The sea level is rising, the world has been devastated by two global pandemics (the book was mostly written pre-COVID, so these parts seem remarkably prescient). In the UK, food production has moved overseas and people are abandoning the countryside to live in the cities with a few people clinging onto the “old ways” until the pressure (a lot of it from the Government) finally drives them into the cities as well.

We follow two strands of story. In the first, Jesse is living in the countryside with his parents who are trying to resist the pressure to move to the city. In the other, Isolde is a city-dweller whose mother was killed in a bomb explosion when Isolde was still very young. As adult, Isolde gets to visit the man found guilty of the bombing as part of a strange justice system and she decides, partly at his prompting, to visit the countryside in search of clues about her mother. On the way up what was the A12 she meets a third main character, Lee, whose presence brings the idea of nationalism to the story because he is fleeing from a nationalist community where he grew up and where he was tattooed to mark him as part of the group.

So, we have Jesse in the countryside pressured to move to the city, and Isolde in the city wanting to visit the countryside. At about the midway point (of the story, not halfway along the A12), the two stories link together and the second half of the book feels very different to the first.

A lot of the writing here is very good. There are times when Allison pauses to explore a topic or the connections it highlights. There is a lot of empathy for people’s situations.

What I didn’t pick up from reading my GR friends’ comments was that there is a “Greek chorus” in the book. I have yet to read a book with a “Greek chorus” that has worked for me (the “for me” is important here because these next bits are purely my personal reaction because of my own taste in books and aren’t a comment on the quality of the book). The other thing that hasn’t yet worked for me in a book is talking animals (see my review of Shafak’s “The Island of Missing Trees” for the latest example of that). So, imagine my dismay when I discovered that not only is there a “Greek chorus” but it is composed of talking cows.

I tried. I really tried. I wanted to like the book a lot more than I did because I thought a lot of the writing was excellent. But the talking cows are just too high a hurdle for me to jump, so I apologise to the author. If you don’t mind talking animals, you really should read this because I think it’s a good book.

[Emmeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is my second gentle dystopia of the past few months. The previous one,The Blue Book of Nebo, was a post-nuclear world in which we are invited to think that babies dying of cancer is possibly balanced by a loss of screens and reconnection with the real world (I liked the book, but baldly stated, I’m not sure I agree). Salt Lick takes similar pleasure in the return to the countryside afforded by, this time, opting out of a centralized, high-tech London where all food is imported.

I’m kind of in two camps about this book.

I found the execution a bit uneven. Partly just in terms of things I personally don’t like (I know I'm in the minority, but I find present tense grating and that it leads to grammatical errors when you then have to talk about things in the past and this book was not exempt). There were also some summarized scenes that could have been developed a little more and conversely, some long descriptions that could have been tightened for more impact. (I say that but actually I have a strong sense of atmosphere from the book so perhaps those descriptions were all right after all). And the book is too long.

On the other hand, it is thematically nuanced and interesting. Again, this is a “gentle” dystopia. Some bad things have happened (state-sanctioned murder, deliberate miscarriage of justice, oh and there are some nasty white supremacists wandering around in fringe towns) but society actually seems to function quite well, despite climate change and pandemics. The Escape to the Country crowd is a nice group, but it’s obvious the rural idyll wouldn’t work on a society-wide level. Nor does it work when one of their members is dying of cancer. (I’m still hazy on how they have running water and bottles of wine).

I also appreciated the dystopian touch of allowing victims to visit those who have wronged them in prison, and shout at them should they wish. It seemed a logical extension of Twitter somehow!

There is a Greek chorus of feral cows that I loved in theory, but I wish they had been given more to do. Or that they had been a bit nastier (I’m informed that cows are forgiving creatures but there’s a lot to forgive in modern dairy practices).

Overall, a book with really interesting bones. I wish it had been given a strong-arm edit. And yet I suspect it will linger with me, just as it is.

[Helene Jeppesen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a huge fan of this. The first part about Jesse was the best in my opinion. I loved being introduced to this dystopian world through his endeavours with his dog. Things went downhill from there, though, and left me with a feeling of frustration every time I picked up the book. Especially the last 100 pages dragged on. Still, it’s a story I would recommend for fans of dystopia and nature, because it’s got some interesting points - it just uses a lot of prose to get there.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddy read with Simon. This is a dystopian and realistic view of what England could look like in just a few decades. Lulu Allison's writing is truly descriptive and even lyrical in parts. The characters were authentic and well-developed. I loved the first half, then my mind meandered a bit before being drawn in again for the ending.

Favorite quotes:

"Agitation disturbs the smooth nap of village life."

"Jesse is suddenly aware of the crunch of leaves under his feet. He is aware of himself in the space, his defined edges when moments before he was a part of all that was around him. The possibility of another human reforms his boundaries."

"They discuss until they argue. They fall into accusations. Him to her of naivety. Her to him of ambitious arrogance. These are familiar charges. These are the words they use to hurt each other. They bicker over the well-chewed meatless scraps that lie under the table of even the most successful marriages."

"Wind rumbles through gaps and around cement pillars as though the muted ghost of combustion."

"She's as nervous as she had been on other visits, but her anxiety this time is cooked from a different recipe."

[Darryl Suite · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book, but it was also disappointing. The first half is stunning. Beautiful prose, atmospheric. It managed to be both dystopian and pastoral at the same time; menacing and peaceful — strange, but it worked.

But then the second half felt trope-y, preachy, and lost its focus. And all the character development suddenly flatlined. It’s still a fascinating book, but everything I loved about it disappeared in the second half. I’d still recommend it.

Also note: The Greek chorus of cows gimmick got repetitive and exhausting pretty early on.

[Ellie Hawkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book grabbed me from the opening chapters. Its unique mix of pastoral dystopia is not something I remember reading about before, and the descriptions of nature reclaiming the country are exquisitely rendered. There is a poetic beauty to Allison’s prose, heightened by the wise words of the wonderful cow chorus, who I loved. But it isn’t sentimental – there’s a harsh edge of realism, indeed, to the point where it feels uncomfortably close to our present reality. This isn’t a distant, sci-fi future – it feels like a distinct possibility, only a few years away, and this adds a poignancy and a layer of fear, even to the more innocent scenes of Jesse and his puppy. The White Towns feel so terrifyingly possible; this is a book that cuts close to the bone of modern Britain.

It is written in a meditative present tense that unfurls around the reader – it is immersive and immediate, and the characters are treated with a tender respect that honours their humanity and their flaws. I really enjoyed the way their stories intersected – this isn’t a plot-heavy novel, but the careful revelation of the connections between the characters of different timelines shows storytelling skill as well as the ability to write stunning prose.

There is something of the mythic about Salt Lick, and yet it is couched in a realism that seems to reflect a very possible future for this country. By turns it delighted me with the beauty of its language and scared me with the accuracy of its depiction of our society – this is a book that lulls you into a dream-like state and then gently shakes you awake. I highly recommend Salt Lick, and am looking forward to reading more work by Lulu Allison.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Speculative fiction set in a near future England. There is massive flooding due to climate change, and two pandemics have ravaged the population. London has attracted many due to availability of resources and food is almost exclusively imported. As the story opens, Jesse is a child living with his parents in a rural village that tries to sustain itself by growing its own food. Isolde is a young woman living in London. Her mother was killed in a bombing when she was a child. Isolde tries to find out more about her mother’s death and travels to the country to discover answers. Her travels eventually lead to an agrarian community.

The plotline moves back and forth among the characters to reveal the ways they are interconnected. It is beautifully written (in present tense). The author depicts many poignant scenes of emotional impact. Her descriptive writing is strong. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Jesse and his dog. I should probably mention the Greek Chorus of cows (not quite sure what to make of the cows but they provide a creative diversion.) I think the first half is more powerful than the second. The characters are well crafted, and I became invested in finding out what would happen to them. I am generally a fan of speculative fiction, and I think this one is a solid contribution to the category. I would definitely read another book by this author.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like a dissenting voice here; lots of reviewers loved this book and it is long listed for the women's prize but I'm afraid I am not a fan. Lots of beautiful prose and an interesting premise saved this from being a one star read. I wanted to like it but overall just felt really disappointed.

There was lots of potential in the dystopian just-in-the-future setting and a good opportunity to ring those warning bells for dangers that may easily face the next generation, but it just didn't really make those points.

I was looking forward to hearing the cows' point of view but it was repetitive and I got bored of reading their interruptions.

The plot was virtually non existent and what there was did not follow any kind of timeline so it wasn't until almost the end that the reader could piece together what had happened; as a narrative it didn't really make sense.

The characters were so lightly sketched I didn't feel any emotional connection or attachment to any of them, even when deaths occurred. There certainly wasn't any exploration of character development.

To me it seemed more like a piece of art than a novel. It described a dystopian future really well but lacked any forward drive - like a vividly drawn picture rather than a story.

[Shreya ♡]

.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up and didn't do much else for a day and a half until I'd finished it. Will be on my best of 2021 list for sure. Magically written. Two of my favourite writers, Ronan Hession and Heidi James had both recommended it on twitter (and have endorsed it on the cover) which led me to ordering it, and so glad I did. Heidi and Ronan are both right, it is an excellent novel. Set in a not too distant future UK, damaged by a pandemic, politics and climate change where food production has all moved overseas and the countryside has become deserted as people move to the city for work. This novel felt very relevant to a post-Brexit damaged Britain. The prose is superb and had me completely engrossed.
And I shall never look at a cow again without trying to hear their chorus.

[Sarah Tinsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid and beautiful story that reminds us how fragile our world us. Written with gorgeous prose and interspersed with a 'chorus' of feral cows, this book left me aching for the central characters and completely submerged in a post-pandemic world. Well worth a read.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chorus of wise feral cows once said:

you are not so lost as you think, girl
listen
you have a voice
listen inside, the hum of it, in your bones
– you will find your way

⇝ 4.5 stars

[Debbie Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best novels I've read in a long time, and impossible to put down. A truly beautiful tale, set in a future England where both climate change and politics have taken their toll. I found myself immediately drawn in, entranced by the stunning writing (every sentence is a wonder), the wholly believable story, and the beautiful, thought provoking arc of the characters. One of those novels where you can actually picture the places, the people, the weather and rustle of the leaves. Bravo, a story for the ages.

[Jo Rawlins · Rating 5 out of 5]

*This review contains spoilers*

It has been a few days since I finished reading 'The Salt Lick'. Initially I gave it 4 stars but have since changed my mind and decided 5* feels more suitable. I thought it was very cleverly structured. The chorus where the cows speak juxtapose beautifully/perfectly/uncomfortably with the narrative of Man, and is particularly insightful. Nature has it right and Man has it oh so wrong in this dystopic fiction.

The atmosphere and the isolation and the barren landscape strongly reminded me of Atwood's 'Oryx and Crake'.

The narratives of Jesse - a boy who comes from the country - and Isolde - who lives in the city - are divided in time and space. As the novella progresses their lives converge in a somewhat predictable highlight.

I was shocked my Jesse's death! I feel that is what has stayed with me the most: the injustice. I am not convinced by the ending and was expecting something more catastrophic to happen. The last thing I expected was a happily ever after - or something close to it. But, I suppose, that is Man's way; we continually adjust to changing circumstances and manage to create a home and familiarity within all sorts of conditions. My one criticism is the ending really. It was too neat. I wanted to feel unsettled. Also, I don't think the author described the setting of the city in enough detail. I think the book would have benefited from a few scenes that explored London life and how it contrasted to the countryside.

The writing is beautiful. I have seen quite a few reviews on the stunning prose and I absolutely agree.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

rtc

[Booknblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, Salt Lick was an intricate puzzle in which the words shed a gorgeous dappled light. Author Lulu Allison says of her book:

Salt Lick imagines an England further along the road we are on – not a dystopia, but further down the wrong road. Food importation becomes total and the countryside is once again wild. People live in the cities. There is a Greek chorus – the herd voice of feral cows, who watch over the protagonists with love and exasperation. https://fromfirstpagetolast.com/2021/...

So much of the book sounds like poetry, but the chorus of feral cows is indeed poetry:

Chorus:
you are not so lost as you think,
girl listen you have a voice
listen inside, the hum of it,
in your bones – you will find your way

Besides for the cows singing in the background, the book is told alternately between two voices, Jesse who we meet first as a young lad and Isolde, who we meet in her late 20's or early 30's.

Time is part of the puzzle and it takes a while to sort it out. The other is what kind of world are we in now and then the individual stories.

Allison writes so beautifully and tells small truths so exquisitely, that I highlighted continually.:

They discuss until they argue. They fall into accusations, him to her of naivety, her to him of ambitious arrogance. These are familiar charges. These are the words they use to hurt each other. They bicker over the well-chewed, meatless scraps that lie under the table of even the most successful marriages.

I so loved every moment of reading this book, that I felt a loss at its completion. While I acknowledge this is not a book for everyone, it is dystopian which are not loved by all, I hope I can encourage some to pick it up and read it.

One last detail from an interview of Lulu Allison, she said that she was encouraged to write this book by a song, Peace in the Valley Once Again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQM2S...

[Sina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Kim Becker (MIDDLE of the Book MARCH)]

DNF at 10%. Not for me.

[Merel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a special book in light of all that has happened in the last 2 years. Especially when knowing this book was in the making before this

[B.S. Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A church rises from the sea, a small, solid island of grey rock. On the spire, a spike of metal, a weather vane with the only arm remaining pointing west, as if reminding the sea that it still has work to do. This way. The whole of England waits to be quenched."

The world as we know it is being eaten alive by the sea. The outer towns and countryside are swamped, only a few inland towns remaining unclaimed by nature. Food is scarce and production has moved overseas seeking more land. A chorus of feral cows wander the abandoned land, watching on silently as the people around them try to survive.

Jesse and his family live in quiet peace in a small remainder of the isolated countryside, playing in the woods, growing food, and clinging to the last memory of home they have before they are forced to give in and move to London. Isolde has always lived in London, but after meeting the man convicted of murdering her Mother when she was a child, she walks away from the city in search of the truth and finds Lee, a man desperate to get into the city to escape the oppressive, racist colony he was born into.

But in a wild, abandoned country, how will they find their place?

Told from multiple perspectives and spanning decades, this story could easily have been confusing as it's largely left up to the reader to figure out when and where the story is taking place - but each jump is crafted masterfully and made it not only easy to follow, but captivating from the first page. We spend just long enough with each character to form a strong connection with them that lasts until we're back with them again.

Salt Lick is told through beautiful, poetic prose that invokes a sense of connection with the world around you and the living things who call it home, scattered with small interludes from the Chorus - patiently watching over our trio of humans with unconditional understanding and care.

And while strikingly beautiful, this tale is deeply unsettling - a world where the climate has shifted and the Earth is reclaimed, humanity are plagued by pandemics and sickness, food shortages are rife, the economy is collapsing and racism and segregration have become rampant as people close themselves off from others. This fictional world is frighteningly possible, a speculative not-too-distance future that feels all too familiar and still so hauntingly strange.

I spent the entire journey in a dream-like state, the story entirely captivating, and so visceral that I could see everything our characters saw on their journeys. The atmosphere was set from the first page and didn't let go of me until long after I'd turned the last one.

⭐⭐⭐⭐


Salt Lick comes out September 16th on Unbound.
This title contains sensitive topics that readers may find triggering including racism, death, self-harm and assault.

[JL Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The synopsis had me hooked before I had even read a page of this book. Straight away, the author takes you into the heart of this possible future for the world. The seas are rising, the climate has changed globally, and a pandemic has ravaged the population. But while this all sounds dark and depressing, there is so much hope in these pages that you can’t help feel optimistic for the future. One large part of the story revolves around a pandemic which was eerily familiar given what we have been dealing with for 18 months.

I liked characters Jesse, Lee, and Isolde, who felt genuine, relatable and three dimensional. The way they had their own sections meant it was easier to learn their personal histories. This made the book for me.

Such a beautiful style of writing and so far outside of my normal reading, this was a breath of fresh air. So, would I recommend Salt Lick to others? Of course I would, and I can think of a few friends who would appreciate it as a gift. Simply amazing. I gave Salt Lick five stars.

My blog with this review, additional author and book info, and buying links, is live now on my website 𝙇𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙞𝙣 𝙗𝙞𝙤.

[Ady · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reads like a creative writing experiment, but in a good way. It is set in a dystopian (but plausible) future where the world has been ravaged by pandemics and the seas have risen to reclaim parts of the land. The rural economy has collapsed, leaving people with no choice but to move to the cities.

We follow three characters, Jesse is an eight-year-old boy whose family is trying to cling to their small village life, but eventually makes the same necessary choice as so many others and moves to the city with his parents. Isolde is a thirty-something year old woman from the city whose mother was killed in a terrorist attack and who is searching for some meaning in her life by looking into her mother’s past. Lee is a seventeen-year-old runaway from one of the “White Towns”. These white nationalist settlements scatter the country. Lee is gay and his family and community will not accept him but are also unwilling to let him go. The book connects these three characters in surprising ways. And throughout all of this, there is a chorus of feral cows watching over these characters and offering their wise, poetic observations to the reader.

The writing in this book is beautiful. The setting is unsettling. And the bovine chorus is the best part. I did not know what to expect going into this book, but I found myself surprised and engaged. While the setting is bleak, the tone of the book is still hopeful and compassionate. This is a book that will stick in my mind.

“Chorus

over time all will fade die and grow again
this is the meaning of natural order
perhaps your time comes to a close
yes, in many ways you spent it well – that was a time, was it not?

but think what you could have done with such gifts”

[Aoife Cassidy McM]

After several nights of this book sending me to sleep, I’ve reached 60% and have decided to abandon it. Usually if I’d gotten this far into a book, I’d finish it but not on this occasion. Depressing and boring, the story felt slack - lacking tension or suspense, and bloated with descriptions of the landscape. The writing is beautiful at times but it’s repetitive.

A pandemic novel set at an unspecified point in the future in the UK, Salt Lick follows two characters, Jesse and Isolde, the former being more interesting and defined than the latter. The opening *is* promising and I had high hopes, but once it switched from Jesse to Isolde, the story drifted.

If a book were an art installation, it would be Salt Lick. Opaque and abstruse, with barely-there characters but a solid sense of place. Around a third in, it became apparent to me that the chorus of voices (lines of poetry interspersed amidst the descriptive prose) that cropped up every few pages was a chorus of feral cows.

I can’t help but compare the book to St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility (also a pandemic, futuristic novel) which is so taut and clever by comparison.

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize but not my cup of tea I’m afraid.

[Annamaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

9.00 = 5*

[Brian]

The excitement that has kept them warm becomes a glow that cheers hearts but leaves feet to freeze. [368]

🔈Touch / Displacing