The Salt Path | the-readers-guide

The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn

The first thought that came to mind after finishing The Salt Path was “Well, that was just lovely.”

The second thought was this really didn’t sound like me. It’s not the sort of thing I say, generally. This all was quickly followed by the further thought that it wasn’t just an odd thing for me to say, but when thinking about what the book was about. The premise looms large in the book, and comes at the reader early, so not aiming to produce too many spoilers here. Main character and husband lose everything at 50. Days after they find out that he has a wasting disease which is in essence a death sentence, they finally lose a long-term court case. Trusted the wrong long-term friend, invested in something that ripped out the heart of the friendship, took all their money, their hope, the farm where they had brought up their kids. The place they had put their heart and soul, blood sweat and tears into for decades. The place they intended to be buried, but for all that being given days to pack up and be gone. Falling out of the system, and not being caught by the safety net that is said to be there for them. For any of us.

In quick succession they are broke, homeless, and his health is meant to go downhill fast. So, what to do? Get on the list for waiting for social housing? Feel a burden to and lose friends? Or act? And if so, how?

An impulse decision sees them spend their remaining savings on the cheapest of the cheap camping equipment, get down to the South West Coat of England, and endeavour to walk it’s 630 mile path. Work out the future, but also the identity that suits them best. Homeless, but if they keep on the move, however they find they can instead define themselves as backpackers – early interactions conveying the truth and risks inherent between this distinction. Seeing people recoil if they say they are homeless, but - without even lying, rather letting people create a story around them - they find it fascinating that people suddenly call them inspirational when they are thought to have just sold up everything and thrown caution to the wind to live free. Same result and lived experience, and still living in a tent on tuna and rice, noodles, cheap fudge and the odd luxury cup of hot chips, but a world of difference in acceptability in the eyes of others. Again comes thoughts to the power of story.

As a book, I found it wasn’t many things, as much as it was very much others. It wasn’t the most beautifully crafted piece of literature I’ve read, but saying that, there were definitely moments where the turn of phrase, something big for me in reading, caught me just so. It detailed immersion in time and space - both on the path as well as with the two main characters. It wasn’t an amazing flight of inventive creativity, instead it was grounded in a ‘one foot in front of the other along the path’ way that easily convinces that this path was taken, this journey taken, by the author and her husband. This combines with the names of Ray and her husband Moth not changing between authorship, dedication/ ‘about the author’ and character.

What The Salt Path has is rawness. And authenticity. And care, and love, and hope, and a dedicated story of journey towards self. It was mind-meltingly sat in realness that was unshakably caring, thoughtful, reflective, and here I say it again, lovely.

It conveyed an ability to see the author’s own country and culture from a vantage point of being separated from it. Let down by it, surely, but this is not dwelt on, not anywhere near as much as other topics, for example finding solace in nature. Finding the rhythm of the path, the rhythm of the day, the ebbing and flowing of the tide. Feelings of oneness and immersion in and with nature. So much more positivity gained than the material things of life lost. Bodies hardening, and importantly for her husband Moth, recovering though effort and endurance. Hope being born out of pain and fear. Reliance on self, and each other.

There’s a few more themes thread through the story, but the patchwork ramblings of imagery above cover the heart of it. Losing what they had worked so hard for so long to achieve, Ray and Moth had a choice. The rest of it you can read yourself, and I do recommend it as a read, but the main thing is that through all, they continued to choose each other. So, a heart-warming, self-affirming story about loss of home, health, status, wealth. And one that also felt authentic - and was a good read. For all this, there was still more to it than that though, but what anyone else can get out of it is up to them.

Simple, raw, slow, deep, immersive and hopeful. For a story about love of nature and love of oneself and one’s partner, that’s a good way to go about it.

By Chris O’Malley

The Salt Path, by Raynor Winn

ISBN: 9781405937184