Not to like the author of The Salt Path

[Romax]

I had been so looking forward to starting this audio book. Ticked every box.

I’m 90 minutes in and I have not all warmed to the author.

She lost her home and then finds out her husband has a terminal illness. My heart went out to her struggles But....

She seems deeply judgmental and actually, for want of another word, bitchy.

I feel like I could well be the only person on the planet who reads / listens to the book and feels this way.

But on the off chance I’m not alone....?

That sounds very tough, Home. I'm sorry.

It's Ok, I escaped and am Ok now! I did feel it influenced me in the reading of the book though especially how the author says her daughter is like her mum etc, and then turns to her and her son for money... anyway I guess it is good it turned out all right in the end and Moth still seems to be doing Ok despite being so ill etc.

I've just finished this and thought it was very over rated. I didn't like the author and found her annoying and I didn't feel like I got to know Moth at all. Not impressed by stealing either. But mostly I just found the book repetitive and dull; I got fed up hearing about them swimming in rock pools.

Apologies for bumping an old thread, I am just reading this now and came on MN to see what others had made of it….

I was struck the reflections on how people can treat others who are outside the ‘norm’. Some of the encounters that they had were truly shocking. And some of that does ring true for the huge social divide in the West Country.

The descriptions of the path are very interesting and quite informative if you like that part of the world.

However, I was uncomfortable with some of the descriptions of trespass and quasi-theft. They often camp on private land and sneak into campsites several times without paying, without much reflection on the livelihood of the campsite owner - especially as they previously ran a holiday lettings business themselves. On any occasion when they can’t just camp where they like, they seem to rather resent it. And the wild ‘squatting’ with no trowel or hole involved is just vile and really not on… Would they have been happy to find that in the corner of a field on their farm?

Most of all I think there is a gaping hole around the reasons for the court case at the start of the book. They are painted as victims of an utterly unjust court case, but presumably the debts they were due to pay (following the investment in the friend’s company) involved other people’s businesses, homes and livelihoods? The author admits that they strung things out as long as possible, so presumably the creditors were going unpaid for all that time, or had already been paid by their ex-friend. And it was, after all, an investment, so presumably if the company had been successful and they had profited then they would have been delighted to take the fruits of that risk…

An interesting read and I will finish the book, but it presents a mixed picture of the author and her spouse.

Well everyone on here were in fact very perceptive given what we now know 🙌 Well done for sniffing out literally all the points of controversy 👏

This aged well