The Book of Salt

Binh’s father is well known in Saigon as a Catholic holy man. His mother abandoned him at a Catholic church when he was a young boy, leading to his conversion. He took a wife for the sole purpose of having sons and has four. He is cruel to his family, calling the boys stupid, and more than happy to never touch his wife again after she pays a midwife to sterilize her after Binh’s birth. Only the Old Man’s eldest son, Anh Minh, receives admiration or praise. Neither seems to realize that Anh Minh will rise no further in his career because of his ethnicity.

The Old Man mostly appears in the novel as a disembodied voice that rebukes and taunts Binh. The Old Man tells Binh that Binh is not his son—an echo of him disowning Binh in real life after Binh’s affair with the French chef at the Governor-General’s house. Binh describes his father as a coward and a heavy drinker.

The Old Man instills in Binh a feeling of inadequacy, and throughout the novel, Binh argues with his father’s voice in his head. This speaks to Binh’s desire—and inability—to be his own man, free of his father’s and society’s stereotypes about him. The Old Man’s death provides some closure for Binh though it does not completely free him from his feeling of incompleteness.

Binh’s mother was an only child. When her father died in her adolescence, he left her and her mother reliant on the dead father’s stingy kin to take care of them. Feeling like a burden, her mother wanted to kill herself and join her husband in the afterlife, so she arranged a marriage for Binh’s mother in exchange for jade earrings as a dowry. After marrying the Old Man, Binh’s mother has known little kindness. Still, she made a small life of her own in the kitchen, a separate space Binh’s father built to keep her and the babies away from him. She dutifully bears him three sons and has a fourth son—Binh—from a brief and happy love affair with a “scholar-prince” who left her with some money but no means of contact after she became pregnant. She dotes on Binh and teaches him silent strength.

Binh’s mother never converts to Catholicism and instead builds an altar in her part of the house to continue her Buddhist faith. After Binh is born, she pays the midwife to make her sterile to escape her painful sex life with the Old Man. After The Old Man disowns Binh, Binh’s mother gives Binh the money she received from her scholar-prince, and they both vow to not die in Binh’s father’s house. She is kind and sad, and we see much of her in Binh’s demeanor.

Just as The Old Man is a negative influence in Binh’s life even after Binh leaves Vietnam, Binh’s mother is a source of love and forgiveness. Binh regrets that his mother spent her life in a loveless marriage, and she becomes a tragic martyr figure for him, as archetypal as the scholar-prince she conjured in his imagination when he was a child.

Anh Minh is Binh’s oldest brother and the only child The Old Man seems to love or have pride in: “Anh Minh, being the firstborn, must have inherited the full measure of his [father’s] intelligence, talent, and ambition” (44). Anh Minh becomes the sous-chef in the Governor-General’s residence and believes he can become head chef, unaware that society’s racism renders this unachievable for a Vietnamese cook. Anh Minh resides under colonial rule and nonetheless chooses to remain in his homeland.

Anh Minh tries to help protect Binh by bringing him to the Governor-General’s house. When Binh’s affair with Bleriot is exposed, Anh Minh isn’t angry with his brother but simply worried about how he can protect him. Anh Minh’s letter to Binh is a major turning point in the novel, as it lets Binh know that their father is dying and that their mother has already passed. Anh Minh urges his brother to return home to Vietnam, but his encouragement is not enough to convince Binh to return to a place that evokes so many conflicting emotions. Even though Anh Minh helps Binh throughout the novel, he symbolizes Binh’s father because Anh Minh was the only child their father approved of. Because of this, Binh’s relationship with his brother is fraught, and he cannot wholeheartedly fulfill Anh Minh’s wishes.

Stein, as perceived by Binh, is a woman with a masculine demeanor and a desire to be the center of attention. She is devoted to Alice B. Toklas, mostly due to Toklas’s absolute devotion to her. Stein writes and holds salons at their home in Paris, with some of the brightest emerging minds of the time coming to court her attention and patronage.

Like some of the novel’s other secondary characters, Stein was a historical personage. She was a pivotal figure in early 20th-century literature and art, renowned for her innovative style and influential role within the expatriate community in Paris. As an American writer and openly queer woman, Stein challenged conventional norms and established a vibrant literary salon that became a hub for artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Pablo Picasso. Stein’s fictional notebook about Binh, The Book of Salt, adds a speculative aspect to her real-life history and explores how Western literature might have been different if Stein’s published writing had included stories about her Vietnamese domestic worker as a main character.

Toklas is the subject of Stein’s most famed work, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The real Toklas’s own published work, a cookbook, mentions an Asian cook—a detail that inspired Truong’s novel.

In the novel, Toklas is comfortable being Stein’s helpmeet, a partner willing to be at Stein’s service. She calls Stein pet names often attributed to husbands. Toklas is a wonderful cook and has a very refined palate, which is challenging for Binh. Toklas is the first employer who notices that Binh cuts himself; her concern for his well-being makes the Stein-Toklas house a warm home for Binh. Toklas is a foil for Binh because he relates to her position as the subordinate individual in his relationships. Both he and Toklas have nurturing qualities that their more dominant partners need, but only Toklas finds contentment in her relationship. At the end of the novel, Binh still lacks a romantic partner, and it is not clear whether he will find one in the future.

Lattimore is a fictional character who is one of the sophisticated young men from Stein’s salon. He is from the US and has a white father and a mixed-race African American mother. He passes for white by bleaching his skin and straightening his hair, but some can still discern his Black heritage. Lattimore is an unlicensed doctor, who reads the irises of a person’s eyes. He and Binh have an affair, meeting on Sundays. Thus, Binh refers to him as his “Sweet Sunday Man.” He and Binh talk about many things, although these conversations are limited by Binh’s language skills.

Lattimore explains the significance of Stein’s work to Binh and also reveals the women’s attitudes toward Race and Sexuality. Lattimore eventually convinces Binh to steal one of Gertrude Stein’s notebooks, which turns out to be about Binh. Soon after getting his hands on this manuscript, Lattimore leaves, breaking up with Binh in a note and giving him the receipt for a photograph they had taken together. For Binh, Lattimore is a symbol of false hope: He takes advantage of Binh, affirming that the con artistry of his professional life bleeds into his personal life as well.