Thirst for Salt

January 16, 2023
Australian writer Lucas’s intelligent debut tracks a love affair between a young woman and an older man. The unnamed narrator, now 37, reflects on the “pause” in her life between graduating from college at 24 and “whatever would happen next.” She recounts a seaside vacation with her mother from that time, when she meets a local named Jude, 42. Soon, the two are sleeping together, and after she returns to her apartment in Sydney, they stay in touch, and she visits Jude on weekends before deciding to quit her part-time bookselling job and move in with him. The two adopt a stray dog and spend months living in bliss, but when the narrator suspects Jude of having feelings for an older female friend, and he bristles at the idea of introducing the narrator to his mother, the narrator second-guesses her devotion to him. There’s not much of a plot involving this well-trod story of a fractured love affair, but Lucas keenly captures the relationship’s slow erosion, as well as the narrator’s ability to make sense of her past while looking back on it. The author’s psychological acuity will keep readers piqued. Agent: Samantha Shea, George Borchardt.

February 7, 2023
Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel opens with the unnamed female narrator, now 37 years old, recalling a past lover. Twenty-four years old at the time and holidaying with her mother, the narrator meets Jude while swimming at Sailors Beach. Although he is 18 years her senior, on their second meeting she follows him through the bush to his home and so begins an intense love affair. From the beginning we know the relationship does not last, yet its pull clearly does, and Lucas’s prose—lyrical, immediate, mesmerising—has us needing to know why. The mother-daughter relationship is a prominent theme; the narrator is driven by the same personal mythology as her mother ‘that love could restore what was beyond repair’. In an attempt to fill the gaps from a fragmented childhood marked by parental absence and instability, the narrator moves in with Jude, drawn to the quiet simplicity of life in the Old House. But not all is as it appears with Jude. As her expectations of love are challenged, she must choose a path forward. The narrative brims with imagery of the ocean and bush, sweeping along with a quiet melancholy that brings to mind Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow. Seductive and sparklingly clear, Thirst for Salt is an unforgettable meditation on memory, loss and the power of love to endure.