The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw. Published May 2 2023 by Tor Nightfire. 112 pages.
Hans Christian Andersen’s mission in life was clearly to permanently scar children’s psyches. While many of us are familiar with the House of Mouses’ version, his classic story The Little Mermaid includes a murder and suicide. I’m all for dark takes on Disney flare and I’m sure if the creatives got their hands on The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw good ol’ Walt would be spinning in his grave, then crawling out and looking for brains. A couple of things, one The Salt Grows Heavy is a bloody dark fantasy about a mermaid princess (hence the tie-in written above), a plague doctor and a village of creepy children. And two, If you’re faint of heart, you might need to turn away from this one. The descriptions of gore, violence, and bloodshed can be triggering and traumatizing if you’re sensitive to such subjects.
In The Salt Grows Heavy, we travel alongside a mute mermaid and a mysterious plague doctor on a journey through the woods. When they stumble across a group of children playing a murderous game of “pig”, they are brought before the children’s keepers, a threesome of sinister surgeons referred to as “the saints.”
Author Cassandra Khaw is really writing some unique stories. This novella showcases their visceral prose style which offers profane poetry in which the horrific is gut-turning yet gorgeous. Khaw’s use of language creates a creeping sense of unease, and temporarily masks the horrific acts it describes while rendering your brain’s ability to unsee the gristle and viscera. This is my second read by this author, the first being Nothing but Blackened Teeth. This one has an otherworldly quality to it that I haven’t quite encountered before. It is, however, not easy to read. The language is heavy, feeling forced at times, and you’ll need a dictionary if you want to fully appreciate it.
My only complaint around this book – if it can even be called a complaint – is that I wish there was more of it. Khaw does an immense amount with such small real estate, but I would have been more than thrilled to be carried further along on the protagonist’s journey through this terrifying, beautiful world. Which I guess is a long way of saying yes, it really is that good.
You’ll find common themes touched upon in this novella; subjugation of women, patriarchal society and manipulating beliefs to suit the agenda of a society ruled by men to crush the weak and the voiceless. Despite the violence and the horrors the main characters endure, the author reiterates that survival is dependent not just on hope but hope and loyalty to each other; friendship matters. When you find your tribe, you can survive just about anything, no matter how strange and unique you are. Ride or die homies … that is a mantra I believe in.
Full of strange and grim entities and characters – but at its core, it’s something else entirely. It’s a survivors’ road trip through their ruined landscape, powerfully told with lush and gore-gous prose, and with protagonists as memorable as they are mysterious – and each with an undercurrent of quiet badassery. Throw in an ending that’s powerful enough to make even the most jaded readers cry, and this will easily be remembered as one of the most unusual and memorable works of literature of 2023.