Thread 10: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The Observer The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...
2nd Observer https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found
3rd Observer https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video
4th Observer ‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...
Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn
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New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting. There are currently 10 items on The Observer website The real Salt Path | The Observer

To all - No saltiness. Keep to the path. Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. We have done amazingly well together for nine very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

Keep calm and eat fudge.

Thank you

Interesting to see the latest ST bestseller list: TSP has dropped to No5 in the paperback charts (3,475) and has been on a downward trajectory since the launch of the film in May (14,145/12,280/9.245/7,535/6235/5,680/3,475)

I wonder what PRH's strategy is at this point since the Observer bombshell landed 3 weeks ago. Sit it out, hope for everything to blow over and publish OWH in Oct 2026? Commission SW to write a warts and all expose - TSP - The True Story? Do nothing and see what if any further revelations emerge over the coming months?

The Sunday Times Bestsellers List — the latest UK book charts

I suppose the question is - how does that compare to the usual trajectory? For a non-fiction book? Or any book that has been made into a film?

It did. Am just wondering (while rereading The Outrun, which in some ways does a similar ‘redemptive arc via attunement to nature’ narrative, but which never claims the writer’s alcoholism and associated behaviours were anything other than her own ‘fault’, insofar as addictions are anyone’s fault as such) whether any of the initial lies/omissions/massaged timelines etc were in fact necessary.

The Outrun did ‘redemption via nature from a bad place’ without having to have been faultless in what brought you low in the first place, was a bestseller, and was made into a high-profile film with a big star in the lead, too. Do the Walkers now wish they’d been a bit less economical with the reality and trusted that the book would still sell on its merits, even if it was more ‘We lost our home through my bad choices, and decided to take a cheap holiday to think things through, despite Moth having some alarming symptoms’ than ‘We became homeless because we were too trusting and Moth got a terminal diagnosis between the court case and us hiding from the bailiffs, and no one would take us in, and we had £48 a week and nowhere to go ’?

I’d sit tight a while before making any decision. But much will presumably depend on how RW decides to play it from here. It would generally be her agent communicating financial/contractual stuff to the publishers, but hard to say how relations currently stand with her agent. Obviously RW’s books/foreign rights, translation rights, film rights etc have made good money for the agency, but, equally obviously, this isn’t good publicity (though I’m not sure the general public woukd even know who represents her, so far less prominent than her publisher’s name?)

If either PRH or RW decide that OWH isn’t happening and she’s released from her contract, it will be her agent hawking round any further books to potential editors. Unless, of course, PRH thinks they’re ‘owed’ another book to rectify reputational damage, and insists that RW fulfils her contract with a rewritten or entirely new one…

TRIGGER SPIDERS
Thank you @Fandango52. It was suggested last week it might be necrotising fascitis (thankfully not) and then a snakebite(definitely not!)
I was definitely bitten and current most likely candidate noble false widow spider. We have them in our lane.
It has not been a great few days but it could have been much worse

God almighty, @Uricon2 — how are you feeling now? Are you out of hospital?

My god, you’ve been put through the absolute ringer! I’m really sorry. Hope your recovery continues to go well, and wishing you the best with it. We’re all thinking of you.

Thanks @FightingTemeraire. Still in hospital, they are contemplating whether to try another few days of nuclear strength antibiotics as my infection markers are still high.
I am not contemplating any restorative hikes as have just graduated to shuffling to the bathroom on a frame. I'll get there

I know he does something to his finger in Landlines. His finger swells up dramatically and he has to have his ring cut off at a hospital in the north of England.

I think the film was odd in that respect. Changed some storylines quite a lot for no reason that I can fathom.

Thanks so much to everyone for the kind words and thoughts, they really are appreciated, I've felt really vulnerable and its good to be back on the normal of our threads! One positive thing is that we've managed to keep DH at home with a vastly increased care package and because my friends are goddesses and just stepped in to help as soon as they knew .

Also they couldn't live in *shudder council housing because what would the neighbours think.

More like Hyacinth Bucket than Citizen Smith.

Best wishes and thanks for saying what you liked about the book.

Chloe H stepping into SW's boots!

Investigative journalist replaces 'The Salt Path' author at Dulverton literary festival | West Somerset Free Press

Blimey you are going through a lot. I hope the infection settles soon and you can get home. I have had sepsis myself and know how scary it can be.

The festival organizer says “I have been advised she will no longer be attending any planned literary engagements, and her publishers have decided against releasing her new book ‘On Winter Hill’ in October.”

No longer attending any planned literary engagements? At her request or PRHs? Sounds like she has been (self) cancelled.

Love your humour re walks. Get well soon and we will try to keep you entertained while you are off your feet.

Another event cancelled in Oxford.
https://noon.org.uk/noon-icons/raynor-winn/

i don’t know what Noon is but this comment from a member in the article hits hard:

One member told us, “If the Observer is to be believed, I’m uncomfortable with her morals, particularly if she is now making good money from telling a sob story about the ‘journey back’.”

So who is attending this event in person? I am and I thought one or two others were. Are we going to identify ourselves to each other (and possibly the Zoom people if the whole room is shown) by saying what we are wearing? Or will we stay incognito and try and guess who might be from Mumsnet?

I have never met anyone from Mumsnet before but I am up for it (as long as you aren’t a stalker
and follow me home!)

https://observer.co.uk/our-events/uncovering-the-salt-path

Clutching a copy of a Simon Armitage book would be a good secret sign!

I wondered about that on here too when I booked my (in person) ticket. It's Catch22 as we know 'hostile agents' are reading these threads. I don't want to identify myself to them.

In terms of the Zoom, I reckon only the presenters will be on the video, but who knows. Exciting times.

I’ll be online only, alas, as no longer anywhere near London, but please do identify yourselves to one another discreetly, because I like the idea of the Mn Fake Memoir Tricoteuses gathering in person. Or, if everyone is throwing discretion to the winds, which poster is it who has a cardboard cutout of Simon Armitage with the head sellotaped back on?

Nonsense, @Uricon2. What you need is a wife with a book project to strap your rucksack onto your feeble frame, having left Paddy Dillon guidebooks to remote and difficult trails lying casually about on your bedside table to fire you with ambition. And, obviously, forget your antibiotics as you leave the hospital grounds. You are a free spirit, unshackled by medicine.

(Hope you feel better soon. You’ve been through the wringer. And seriously, a spider bite?)

@ThatFluentHedgehog any hostile agents will be far more interested in Chloe than me. So…. I am wearing a black and white zebra print dress. (If you don’t come and say hello now I will be crushed and insecure so you have to!)

😂I cannot begin to tell you how much that made me laugh. A nurse came with my Oxycodone as she thought I was in more pain.

Thank you
ETA I intend to drag my heavily dressed leg down the ward muttering about the curative power of a nice walk. Sadly, my limit is about 10 yards max ATM