The Salted Air

by Thom Conroy

28-year-old Djuna is without a foothold. The suicide of her partner has left her derailed and casting about for the joy she fears may be gone for good. Her parents' relationship has disintegrated, her family home is occupied by Burmese refugees, and she is drawn to the one man she must reject.
In pursuit of a roving father and a renewed sense of belonging, Djuna wanders from Wellington to the natural beauty of New Zealand's remote East Cape. Narrated in vivid, confessional vignettes, The Salted Air tells a story of transgression, love and hope.

302 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2016

About the author

Thom Conroy is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. His short fiction has appeared in various journals in the US and New Zealand, including Landfall, Sport, New England Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Kenyon Review. He has won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction and his writing has been recognised by Best American Short Stories 2012 as well as the Sunday Star-Times Short Fiction Competition.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read more books by New Zealand authors I'm finding that I'm also expanding my reading horizons a little and reading books I wouldn't typically read. Literary fiction is a new foray for me and I think The Salted Air falls into that category.

This book is written really beautifully. Thom Conroy has a nice poetic writing style and it just made reading this book a really nice experience. He captured the emotions of the book really well too. There were so many times when I felt just as Djuna was feeling.

There is great descriptive writing within this book and it explored and described the East Cape of New Zealand so well. There were times where I could picture it so vividly in my head and it really made me want to go there.

The main character Djuna is 28 and I felt like she didn't act like it a lot of the times. Just the relationship with her parents seemed so strange. It made the book have a strangely fascinating angle as I struggled to understand the relationship she had with her parents.

I found The Salted Air to be a really intriguing and enjoyable read. It's quite complex but the shortness of the chapters made the book easier to digest. Thom Conroy has another book out called, The Naturalist which I think I'll pick up some time soon.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thom Conroy's The Salted Air was one of the books that prompted me to initiate #AYearofNZLit, co-hosted with Theresa from Theresa Smith Writes. I have a shelf dedicated to my NZ Lit TBR and having enjoyed Conroy's historical novel The Naturalist (2014) so much, I really wanted to read this next novel.  I just needed a catalyst to tackle this growing shelf of interesting books!

The Salted Air is a departure in style and preoccupations from The Naturalist.  It's a contemporary novel, narrated by a young woman called Djuna. 

The style of the novel is driven by Djuna's experience of writing with her parents.  Each of them would write about their day in a notebook which was intended for the others to read.  There were no secrets; it was an open way of communicating about whatever seemed important at the time.  So at this moment of crisis in her life, Djuna records scraps of her thoughts in brief chapters, some of which are only half a page long.  The narrative is mostly chronological but there are reflections on her past.

I hesitate to use the loaded term 'hippies' about Djuna's parents but her father Eugene in particular is drawn to an alternative lifestyle which is governed by values outside the mainstream. He is, at least superficially, not interested in money or possessions or the security that a stable relationship can bring (and that his daughter needs at this time).  These parents are interested in following their own impulses, and in altruism.  But their marriage cracks apart just when Djuna needs them most.

What sort of thing makes me feel safe? I'm at a loss.  I fumble for an image, anything at all, and arrive at my mother sitting at the kitchen table in our house on the Palmerston North river terrace.  She looks up from a piece of stationery, a pen in hand, an envelope and a handwritten letter beside her.  A cup of tea, one greying strand of hair on her temple, contemplative, startled to see me.  I watch her there long enough to see the corners of her mouth turning up so that I know she'll call me to her and hold me and I won't be out here by the rushing pounding darkness of the sea any more, out here beneath the infinite and sterile plain of the heavens.

What else brings me safety? It takes a moment to come to me, but there it is: my father, also in a kitchen.  Only he's standing. He's talking, of course. Even in my imagining of him, he's talking.  (p.226)

Coming to terms with the tragedy that has befallen her, Djuna realises that these nostalgic memories of childhood are promises that don't deliver.  Her father is big on hugs, and reassurances that everything will be ok, and that love takes you down a road and you just gotta follow along and see where it takes you.  But neither he nor Djuna are being honest with each other in the way that their notebooks were.  His comfort is hollow but would he be different if he knew her sordid secret?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/04/07/t...

[Christine Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different style but lots of good writing, piecing together the story. Interesting characters, and yes this book works. Good read.

[Ian Lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big type, lots of white space, shows-doesn't-tell, quick read. I shouldn't have read the author blurb because it made me think about being a writing teacher all the way through and stopped me from settling in to the narrator's voice. It's always a risk for men to write from a female point of view and I wasn't entirely convinced for a lot of the book. On the other hand, the sense of place is quite good and the characters have interesting aspects, I just wish I hadn't been evaluating it all the way through.