Thirst for Salt

by Madelaine Lucas

“Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt gripped me immediately, with the tender acuity of its voice and the propulsive electricity of the relationship at its core: a love affair so richly and attentively imagined it carries the grace and gravity of memory itself.” —Leslie Jamison

It’s hard to remember now that I was once that girl, lying in the sand in my red swimsuit and swimming late into the day. Sharkbait, he called me.

It’s in the water where she first sees him: a local man almost twenty years her senior. Adrift in the summer after finishing college, a young woman is on holiday with her mother in an isolated Australian coastal town. Finding herself pulled to Jude, this man in the water, she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life. 

As their relationship deepens, life at Sailors Beach offers her the stability she has been craving as the daughter of two drifters—a loving but impulsive mother and an itinerant father. But the arrival of Maeve, a woman from Jude’s past, threatens to rock the fragility of their newfound intimacy. And when she witnesses something doesn’t fully understand between Maeve and Jude, she finds herself questioning everything—about Jude, about herself, about the life she has and the one she wants.

Years later, when a photograph of Jude with a young child—presumably his own—comes to the surface, she finds herself drawn back to the events that took place at Sailors Beach and the decisions made there that changed the course of both of their lives. A sensuous and unforgettable debut, Madelaine Lucas’s Thirst for Salt is an electrifying, mesmerizing love story that lingers with powerful, aching emotional depth.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Summer, Summer Reads, Audiobook

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 7, 2023

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

nostalgic girls unite. this one's for us

this is a really lovely and melancholy rambling musing on what it is to love and have lost, and how the enduring nature of love means we never really have lost — even when we really, really wish we could. even when we know it's impossible.

it's very, very romantic, in the more complex and bittersweet meaning i prefer. this both is and isn't a love story, but what it is is really quite good.

bottom line: for my overthinkers out there!

----------------------
tbr review

melancholy lit fic and autumn just go together

(review to come)

[A Mac · Rating 2 out of 5]

She’s 24 the first time she sees Jude at the beach. On summer holiday with her mother, she learns that Jude is 42, a local man, and works with antiques. The more she thinks of him, the more she becomes intrigued, and soon finds herself wanting to leave her old life behind and settle with him. The stability he offers becomes her safe haven, but the longer she stays with him the more she realizes she doesn’t know much about him. When a woman from his past becomes more present in their lives, she begins to question just how happy she truly is.

This work is an introspective character study. But it lacks the emotion I want from a work of this nature. Everything is told to us from the woman’s POV but feels detached emotionally, even from her described emotions and inner thoughts. This makes for a bit of a dry read, even more so because there’s not much plot present. It takes a long time to really learn anything about the narrator, which made it difficult to find any way to connect with her for the first portion of the work. We never really get to learn much about Jude either, which made him feel like a part of the background. It was unfortunately impossible to become invested in the characters.

The author did a good job at bringing the setting to life, describing the ocean and the small beachside town in a way that made a lovely backdrop for the story. I did dislike that a future event would be mentioned or referenced, then it would be several chapters later before that event happened. I also think I would have liked this work more if it had been shortened – there were several instances where things were significantly overwritten without adding much to the characters or plot. But there were also some instances where the author wove words together in a beautiful and descriptive way.

I read this hoping for an emotional, introspective book that would make me feel melancholic and reflective, but unfortunately found it to be boring and disconnected. I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks really love this read, but it wasn’t for me. My thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

[elle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"it never really goes away, the longing for the life not lived, because isn’t that part of how we come to know ourselves too? through what we lack as much as what we have, all we dream but do not hold. some desires have no resolution."

in some of the most stunning prose i've ever read, madelaine lucas explores relationships at a vulnerable and intimate level in her debut novel. we follow a nameless protagonist in her early twenties through her love affair with jude, a much older man. it is significant that she is nameless—like her lack of identity, she has a lack of belonging too. she attempts to find home in the marrow of someone else's bones.

throughout the book, the narrative, which is haunting and atmospheric and lyrical and feels like its own creature, she explores romantic relationships. ones that are as skewed as they come, unequal power dynamics, what it means to feel overwhelmed by the inferno of a first love, how memory distorts reality and how nostalgia is a rose colored paradigm.

but she also writes about the intricacies of mother-daughter relationships, which have slowly become my favorite thing to read about as i get older (& my mother inevitably does too). how are we our own people and yet each other's? how do we define these close familial relationships and its ever changing boundaries with age?

water metaphors and imagery are prominent in this novel—like water, relationships are fluid, filled with obfuscating lines and fluctuations that feel similar to the ebb and flow of the tides. like the vastness of the ocean, lucas writes a comprehensive study of these flawed yet human characters. just such a deeply complex and empathetic portrayal of love and the jarring juxtaposition of what it means in our memories versus in reality.

thank you to tin house books for the arc <3

[Mbhabibti · Rating 1 out of 5]

I fear this did not quench my thirst for a good literary fiction, and I do feel a bit salty about it.

[Suz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a well written debut, with a definite literary fiction vibe.

Love-great love, as Jude would say-has a way of seeming both miraculous and inevitable.

An unamed protagonist (not sure why, really.. because she could?) spent a summer at a beach, post uni graduation. She meets a man, the abovementioned Jude, and she falls in love. He is older, and they spend the honeymoon period in a state of love/lust. This is described to us in an academic, break it down to the reasons why, how did our pasts shape us kind of way.

Jude was never committed, and the unamed woman wanted more. She reflected on her life a lot, allowed her old life to disappear while she headed down south to commute to the beach where Jude lived. It was, to me, a lacklustre love, where they went through the motions. She, a bit clingy, he a bit rude in his flippancy. I wasn't sure how she could be so enamoured.

I didn't connect with these characters, I read to finish the book with no compulsion. I'm disappointed I felt no more for this as I realise the author wrote with thoughts of her own upbringing in mind.

I stumbles across the audio version, and have to say the author's voice was great. It is not always the case an author should narrate their own book, but this was not one of them.

With my thanks to Allen & Unwin for my physical advanced review copy.

[Marilyn (not getting notifications) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas took place in Australia in a sleepy, quiet coastal beach town one summer. It was told from the POV of the narrator who was a twenty-four year old woman who had recently graduated from college. She was at Sailors Beach with her single mother and younger brother on holiday. Her upbringing had been quite unconventional. The narrator switched back and forth between her present day life and her earlier years throughout the audiobook. This allowed her to reflect upon her childhood and what her life had been back then. The unconventional way she was brought up impacted her relationship she had with her mother and brother. More than that, it played a role in the way she viewed and handled the relationship she found herself in that summer. She met a man named Jude at the beach one day. He was almost twice her age and was a local that worked in an antique store. Although the relationship between Jude, the almost forty-two year old man, started off well it wasn’t long before it turned toxic. She was seeking stability and the relationship offered her that stabilizing force for awhile, at least she thought so. When she witnessed something on the beach one night, it made her second guess everything she thought she had found.

Thirst for Salt was Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel. I listened to the audiobook that was narrated by the author herself. Madelaine Lucas’s writing was quite descriptive and made it easy to visualize the Australian scenery. I found Thirst for Salt to be quite slow and I had difficulty connecting with the characters in any meaningful way. My favorite part was when the couple found an abandoned dog on the beach. I enjoyed the tenderness and love they each openly felt towards the dog. Even though this was not high on my list of enjoyable audiobooks, I would give this author another a chance.

Thank you to Recorded Books for allowing me to listen to the audiobook of Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas through Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young woman meets a man whilst out swimming off a beach in New South Wales, Australia. He christens her Shark Bait, and a friendship begins, which blossoms into a love affair. Years later, the woman sees a picture of the man with a young child. It seems she’s been tracking him online for some time. The photograph prompts memories of their time together. It’s possible she’s obsessed with him; it was only a relatively short space of time, but it was an intense and memorable period of her life.

She was twenty-four years old. He was forty-two. She liked the symmetry of that. Was she hunter, or was she prey? It’s hard to sure, but her descriptions of that time are peppered with phrases describing her longing: she was always a beggar for his heart even if his heart was a dry country. Make of that what you will.

I listened to an audio version of this story, read by the author. I’d describe Madeleine’s accent as something approaching a posh English but with a discernible Aussie twang. In my view, it suited the character perfectly. The tale is effectively a long monologue, which, in addition to describing the romance and it’s ultimate breakdown, touches on relationships with family members. It’s a slow, thoughtful, and thought-provoking piece. I liked it a lot.

My thanks to RB Media, Recorded Books for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

(230614) no because i feel SICK to my stomach. what do i even say about this that will entirely capture my reading experience?

the writing is so graceful and the narrative so intimate that it made the story resonate more deeply and personally with me. the fluid storytelling puts all the scenes in a gentle light, which makes sense because the narrator tells the story by recalling the past. the touch is so tender and sorrowful that my heart physically ached at times. i like the juxtaposition of the melancholic atmosphere and the warm beach setting; something so beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful about it all.

i just.. like it so much. i can't explain what exactly it did well, only that it worked for me and that it achieved what it set out to do. this is a fantastic debut novel. Madelaine Lucas is a skillful author that i will surely be looking forward to reading more of!

240206 edit: 5 stars bc i'm still thinking about this novel

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

thirst for salt is a subtle, fairly quiet debut novel following our 24 year old protagonist’s relationship with a 42 year old man. literary fiction novels which really dig into the complexities and nuances of relationships (whether that be romantic, platonic, familial etc) are my favourites, and thirst for salt does this with tenderness but also a lot of truth.

although the book follows our narrator’s relationship with an older man, the relationship exploration is more between the narrator and her family, especially her mother, and the love stories that endure throughout generations. the narrator’s twenties coming-of-age focuses a lot on her understanding of the relationship of her parents as she grows older, the understanding that your parents had their own lives before you and continue to have interior lives even after you, and may be connected in other ways that don’t even involve you.

the setting of the australian coastal town was written very poetically and felt very atmospheric, and was especially relatable to me as i live in a seaside town so could easily picture how it becomes isolated in winter, and then full of life again in summer. it was interesting to read a book set in australia, because it just fascinates me as a country, although i doubt i will ever visit because i will simply drop dead at the sight of those spiders.

thank you to oneworld publications for the advanced copy! thirst for salt is out in the uk on 4 may 2023.

[shauna · Rating 5 out of 5]

the chronically overthinking/nostalgic/romanticizing girlies will get it

[Amina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I ruined my books, like he’d said on the day that we met. I turned the pages with wet hands, salt and sand dried in the margins, the edges warped in waves, I spilled coffee, crumbs, blood from a chewed fingernail. And in this way the books held my life, were my life—

She's sitting in front of the ocean, the first time he approaches her-- twenty years older. She's just finished university in Australia, and she's on holiday with her younger brother and mother. When a passionate relationship ensues with the older man, Jude, she starts to unravel, obsessed with the idea of what will, can, and should be.

It's a challenging, intense love that makes you ponder over your relationships and how much you are willing to give and take.

Even though it's an age gap story, it's two consenting adults--which makes it palpable (unlike some books--*ahem* My Dark Vanessa).

Something was enchanting about the messy entanglement, stolen glances, and forgotten words. It almost felt like you were at the beach, experiencing the headache and love.

It never really goes away, the longing for the life not lived, because it isn't that part of how we come to know ourselves, too

The writing is gorgeous, each word matching the next like a perfect poem you want to read over and over.

Who is to say what love is or what it wants to be, the shape it takes, or how quickly it comes on? Love has always made a fool of time

I loved the ending of this book, it wasn't tied in a neat bow, but it made sense, more like life, realistic.

5+ stars

[Steph Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

gave me actual chest pains

[Cameron Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

“how could i have been a mother when i was still my mother’s daughter?”

oh wow.
take this with you on holiday girls. this book was so stunning. nostalgia. how memory can make things sweeter. reminiscing about old love. soft and gentle prose. slow and delicate and brutal. the tone reflects and compliments the setting, a character in itself. it reminds me of the paper palace in this way. the heavy beauty of it all.
just so bloody romantic.

[kenzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars ⭑.ᐟ

[Ruby Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Thirst for Salt" is an unexpected pleasure. I was drawn into the story right away from the lyrical writing and the electricity of the love affair. More than a love story, it speaks to home, loss, memory, and mother-daughter relationships. This book is special. I will be revisiting it in years to come. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

[bweadbun · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What continues to surprise me, and what I still don't understand, is not the reasons that love ends but the way that it endures.”

summertime sadness FR

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★s
Thirst For Salt is the first novel by Australian-born author, Madelaine Lucas. Some thirteen years after her love affair with a man almost two decades her senior, the Unnamed Protagonist returns to Sydney from New York City for a short stay with her mother in the Blue Mountains. Together again, and having recently seen a picture of Jude online, UP recalls the details of that intense almost-twelve-month interlude, and skims over its effect on her later life.

Having just completed her Uni degree, twenty-four-year-old UP travels to Sailors Beach where her (also unnamed) mother has rented a whaler’s cottage for a month. Spending time on the beach, she encounters a charismatic antique dealer. Jude is forty-two. UP is instantly attracted, and begins an affair that she initially conceals from her mother, even as she believes that her mother’s earlier bohemian, transient lifestyle indicates she wouldn’t object.

UM goes home, but UP returns to Sailors Beach repeatedly, eventually coming to live with Jude in his big old house. They adopt an ageing stray dog. They live a secluded life together, when Jude isn’t selling furniture. Hearing about his previous women, UP wonders: “What kind of woman would I have to be to keep him?”

UP’s somewhat unconventional upbringing, devoid of a steady male presence, is probably responsible for her naivete, her lack of emotional maturity at age twenty-four that sees her tolerating Jude’s poor behaviour when she might otherwise realise that Jude’s glib excuses about trust and freedom rely on her enthrallment with him to seem valid. “The freedom to leave and return at will – that was true love, Jude had told me. We should be a pleasure to each other, not a necessity. A gift.”

It must have taken no small effort to avoid naming the protagonist, and her mother, over some three hundred pages. Coupled with the omission of quote marks for speech, this results in an irritating ambiguity that, for many readers, will not be entirely compensated by the gorgeous descriptive prose. The narrative flips around between various periods of UP’s life which are not always clear, another source of ambiguity. Literary gimmicks that may please critics but are not always appreciated by the average reader.

Lucas does give her characters some insightful observations: “…time in the absence of someone you love cannot be measured in the same way as regular time” and “… it’s not so easy to forget, to leave the past behind. It follows after, like a loose hem or a wake in water. You drag it with you when you go” are examples.

Anyone who has visited a south-coast NSW town will agree that Lucas easily evokes her era and setting. None of the main protagonists is particularly likeable, so it’s difficult to connect with or invest in them. While the prose is often beautiful, parts of the story are slow and, frankly, boring, and what the blurb promises is not necessarily delivered for every reader.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Tin House Books for an Advanced Review Copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this book. It was full of tenderness and lustful romance but at the same time it kept itself grounded and realistic to the commodities of human interaction.

Lucas writes with such great elegance, with many lines that I underlined. Even in salacious scenes, Lucas knew the boundaries in her writing between romantic and flat-out cringey. She wrote in a way that most romance writers should take note, with maintenance of the heart and beauties of the romance and also writing it in a way that doesn’t sound fake.

I loved Lucas’s attention to detail. It would be the minor thins of a passage that truly got to me, whether it be details of the nature around our character, or just brief observations of life that felt necessary to the story and not just a pretentious ramble. She used her words in a way that both was necessary and also beautiful, which usually don’t have the same amount of balance in contrast with one another.

I loved the connections with family. It felt very vital and prudent, with the overarching motifs of familial relationships being at the core of the story, along with the romance at hand.

I still am trying to understand the title of this book, “Thirst for Salt,” as the book never said the words, but instead used nature as a background to the painting (which I call the book), with the themes in the foreground. I guess that may be the reasoning behind the title. This thirst, a quench for love and a future of beauty, and salt, a raw material of this earth being the overlay of life. That may be too poetic to be writing about this late at night (precisely 12 at night) but this book has inspired to write in it’s style, poetic and light.

all in all: this is a good book. i really liked it. good start of the year. 4.25 stars

[mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Madelaine Lucas
Content: 4 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars
Complete audiobook review

Thirst for Salt is a novel about love and motherhood. It is a story about a 24-year-old woman that falls in love with a 42-year-old man. Told in somewhat melancholic poetic prose about their time together and how their relationship developed in roughly one year.

The author narrates this audiobook, which adds value to this novel. Thirst for Salt is a quick read or listen with beautiful prose that, in an audiobook format, often sounds like an extended lyrical poem.

Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

[PattyMacDotComma]

DNF - no rating
“Perhaps my mother is right. I’ve carried it all with me for too long. I need to find a place to put it all down. For so long I have lived like the woman in the parable, looking back to see whatever ruins lay behind me. If I had remained at Sailors Beach and had a child with Jude, if I had married him, as I once imagined I would, my bridal train would have been made of salt and sand.”

I read about 50 pages, skimmed another 50 and decided it’s not for me. It begins as a not unusual summer romance (although she, the unnamed protagonist would disagree) in a beachside holiday town.

A 24-year-old woman falls for a 42-year-old local and ruminates on life, love, and most especially the 18-year gap between their ages. Her mother had a colourful background and the two of them were alone and close for many years.

Now there’s a little half-brother, and mother is looking forward to grandchildren while also sounding somewhat surprised to be turning 50. The daughter has not told her mother about her secret afternoons with Jude.

I left after the affair began. I know a very happy marriage with this same age gap, so that’s not what bothered me. With no names and no quotation marks, the story just flowed through what felt like a wistful, somewhat bitter store of memories. Perhaps they were intended to be bittersweet, I don’t know – I didn’t get that far.

Read some other reviews – this might be your thing, just not mine. Thanks to Allen & Unwin for the copy for review. I appreciate the opportunity, and I’m sorry I’m not more positive.

I recommend the recent article (2 April 2023) about the book and the author in The Guardian. "My parents’ divorce reshaped our family – but it wasn’t the end of their story"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

[Brandice · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Thirst for Salt a 24 year old woman vacationing at the beach with her mom meets a 42 year old man, Jude. She finds herself drawn to him, despite their obvious age difference.

She largely abandons her post-graduate life and part-time job in Sydney to join Jude at the beach, where she tries to establish the stable life she’s always envisioned. Their age gap is highlighted in various ways, most noticeably through their different desires and ideas about what constitutes a good life. When an old friend of Jude’s resurfaces, the 24 year old begins to question things.

Madelaine Lucas’s writing is great in Thirst for Salt, her debut novel. I felt the descriptive atmosphere and the tension. I enjoyed this character-driven story though the pace was slow at times. I didn’t love the unnamed MC and Jude, but I didn’t dislike them either. Mostly, I felt detached from them. I look forward to seeing what Lucas writes next — 3.5 stars

[jocelyn • coolgalreading · Rating 5 out of 5]

a top read of the year for me

[Jaimie forsyth · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ a story abt a couple 18 years apart could have been an interesting study of power dynamics in age gap relationships but instead she spent 300 pages describing the curtains. flop

[Kelley Coakley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only just finished this book, and I want to write a review for it while it’s still very fresh, but I know that I will be affected by this book for a very long time. This book is an honest, heart wrenching look at real love and real life. Essentially it’s about how we are shaped by loves we once had and how love changes our outlooks on reality. Phenomenally written and visceral from start to finish.

[makayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

think To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf scenery mixed with the fear of loneliness and intimacy

[Aly Lauck]

I loved this book. Contemporary fiction is my favorite and I recommend this to anyone who likes women’s literature. Fantastically written and I’m sure it will resonate and be relatable to a lot of readers!!

[Luminaria · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm so baffled. Is this because my copy was an Advanced Reader's copy? I see it has good reviews for the plot, but it's extremely hard to fall into if you have NO idea what is being said or what is part of the story. Why? Because there is absolutely no quotation marks of any kind used in this story.

I'm very disappointed as I was genuinely enthusiastic over winning this book and then... Deflated disappointment and realizing I can't read this... If this a stylistic choice PLEASE consider that a reader isn't going to have the knowledge as the writer. We don't know what comments are part of the story or dialogue. Extremely confusing when any quotation marks would have helped tremendously.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Thirst for Salt, we are presented with a doomed love affair between a 24-year old nameless narrator and her 42 year old partner.

The two meet while she is on vacation with her mother in a coastal Australian town and she takes to him right away despite the age gap.

Now in her 30s, the protagonist recounts her time with Jude all those years ago and how it, along with the instability of her family growing up, has shaped her.

She seeks stability and connection in this much older man, though a lot of the time the relationship presents her with more self doubt and turbulence, which she only sees in hindsight.

The writing is what really stands out to me here, the prose was beautiful and it made me stop quite a bit to let it all sink in.

This book reminded me a lot of something Sally Rooney would write, mixed with two of my other favourite books: Green Dot and Acts of Desperation.

If you've enjoyed any of those things or have an interest in them, I have a feeling this book is something you'd enjoy!

[zeynep · Rating 5 out of 5]

“but to be found also implies that something lost has been returned to its place of belonging, and what did I know about love and stones? i was still holding out for a kind of love that felt like homecoming.”

thirst for salt is a novel that’s so heavy with sadness and written with some of the most beautiful prose i’ve ever come across that i had to put it down a few times—both savouring it and catching my breath. it depicts the relationship between a nameless narrator (known only as sharkbait or love, through the lens of this particular relationship) and a man much older than her, jude. the narrator is much older recounting the history, and the entire story of the relationship has the haziness of something remembered more fondly or more bitter than it actually happened.

this relationship is formative for the narrator because it’s through it that she explores her relationship to motherhood, love, and family, and what the overlap of these things means to her. we are told in the beginning that jude is a father, their relationship having long ended, and the narrator is not a mother herself. the characters are sparse, jude is at the focal point of everything, and in that way it’s really intricately portrayed how a relationship you move your life to make room for can feel all-encompassing and eventually stifling.

there is a significant age gap between the characters that shows itself in many of their interactions and at the foundation of their relationship. we question how much of the uneven power balance between the characters is because of this difference in age and how much is simply themselves, their nature. it’s also important that jude is close in age to the protagonist’s mother, who has, up until that point, been at the centre of her life. it’s mentioned that upon meeting him, the protagonist decides she wants a life outside of her mother’s purview.

the prose is absolutely stunning, but it can get incredibly heavy, and while i do recommend it, i’d definitely check content warnings before going into the book as a whole.

“but no father can protect his daughters from growing up and becoming the kinds of women who are bold enough to enter the houses of strange and solitary men. there is nothing that can protect them from the high wild loneliness of such a life or the desires that come with it. what you might do for a way out.”

[Mel || mel.the.mood.reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bone achingly melancholic story of love and loss. The prose is so lush and the story so lived in, I wondered at numerous points whether this was actually a memoir rather than a novel. Jude is such a flawed, atypical romantic lead, and the relationship is clearly doomed from the start, yet you can’t help but be swept up in the whirlwind. A perfect reading experience in the final weeks of the year.