The Book of Salt

The novel opens at the main train station in Paris, with Binh accompanying his employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, on their way to their ocean voyage to America. Photographers are flashing lights and snapping photos, much to Stein and Toklas’s delight. They are now the centers of attention, something Stein in particular craves. Binh has gotten a letter from his oldest brother, Anh Minh. Binh had written him five years earlier, when he had begun his tenure at the women’s household as their cook. Binh hasn’t been home to Vietnam in eleven years, while the women are returning to the US after some thirty years.

Binh arrived in Paris in 1926, a few years before the Stock Market Crash and ensuing hard times. Binh notes that the Great Depression had chased many Americans from their homeland to Paris, where they could drink (Prohibition in the US curtailed that activity in America) and gather in cafes or homes such as Stein’s to discuss art, literature, and philosophy. However, the Great Depression had followed the Americans, as evidenced by the booming business at the local pawn shops. Many were now heading back to the US.