The Book of Salt

Binh is the novel’s protagonist. He is a Vietnamese man in his 20s living in Paris and working as a cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. His life is complicated by his homosexuality and the constraints of colonialism. He is the fourth son of his father, referred to mostly as the Old Man, and his mother, who is trapped in a loveless marriage. Binh expresses himself to the reader in a poetic voice, but due to his limited French and English, he is unable to fully communicate verbally with most of the novel’s other characters. He seems somewhat content to live in the shadows and quiet, yet struggles to find peace in his role as a servant, as evidenced by his habit of cutting himself and overindulging in alcohol.

Binh dreams of true love and his own “scholar-prince,” a figure prominent in the rich fantasies his mother shares with him while teaching him in her kitchen. Binh seems to forever fight against his father’s cruel judgments and voice, which follow him to Paris. Binh finds some solace in Stein and Toklas’s kitchen, knowing that there he can impress and express as he can nowhere else.