Lot's Wife: Salt and the Human Condition

by Sallie Tisdale

Sallie Tisdale's extraordinary meditation on life & human experience. She peers into the salty universe of the unborn fetus, into the depths of the Great Salt Lake & into the shafts of a 1000-year-old mine, where human hands have carved chandeliers, even cathedrals, of salt. We learn about kidneys & high blood pressure; about salt domes miles wide, miles thick; about tribes that eat no salt & tribes that drink only salty water; about beef jerky, crocodile tears, sailors' songs & the Salt Tax. Sociologically, biologically, economically & metaphorically, Lot's Wife examines salt in all its myriad forms & uses.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Sallie Tisdale is the author of Talk Dirty to Me, Stepping Westward, and Women of the Way. She has received a Pushcart Prize, an NEA Fellowship, the James Phelan Literary Award, and was a Dorothy and Arthur Shoenfeldt Distinguished Writer of the year. Her work has appeared in Harper's, the New Yorker, and other publications.

Reviews

[Erik Graff]

I read this book while I was working on an exegesis of the "if the salt saltless becomes, wherewith shall you salt it?" gospel parallels for publication in The Ancient World journal. The pericope had always mystified me and I was looking for possible angles of interpretation that might have been missed. As it happened, there were no great insights gained relevant to the texts, but this book was a pleasant way to get into the mood for writing during the days the project spanned.

[Nancy Warenda]

quite interesting if you're curious about salt.

[Keith]

Another and very interesting perspective on salt.

- Salt causes hypertension in some people, but not all.
- There is one tribe where salt consumption is extremely low.