The organs in Cassandra Khaw’s taiga are grey. Not the rush of vibrant purple reds or the gory splatter of ketchup. Instead, the intestines in this novella are the slow, loud, and cold colors of the boreal forest. Imagine having perpetually, inexplicably wet hair in a frozen wood. Imagine the cold creeping into your insides. Those are the terrors of Khaw’s novella, The Salt Grows Heavy. You are stranded in a place where you make no sense.
The Salt Grows Heavy (Tor Nightfire, May 2023) is a fairy tale in essence— told from the perspective of a mermaid princess, plucked from the sea like a prize by a cruel Prince who cut out her tongue and forced her to bear his daughters. The story opens as those offspring suck the bones of the Prince’s destroyed kingdom, luxuriating atop a pile of rubble. The only survivors seem to be the mermaid narrator and a plague doctor, cloaked and masked. The two seem to know each other – a sweetness exists between them. They decide to leave the forsaken kingdom and enter the forest in search of a new beginning.
While wandering, they come upon a pack of children who kill their friend in a hunting game. The plague doctor, armed with an androgynous sense of obligation, intervenes and promises to punish the boy he suspects is the leader. But the adolescent swears, with a self-righteous sneer, that nothing is wrong at all. He leads the mermaid and her escort back into town, where the only residents are children and a council of three surgeons (called Saints). The surgeons proceed to resurrect the dead boy with an icy cold material magic. The children watch as their brother screams back to life.
Khaw’s prose is precise and deliberate, spun with a lacy matter-of-factness that highlights the sense of place and terror.
The Salt Grows Heavy is a fable about power – where does it come from? What are you supposed to do with it? Why are some people so compelled to collect it? And what right do you have to interrupt someone’s relationship with it? The strength of the story is in its presentation – Khaw’s prose is precise and deliberate, spun with a lacy matter-of-factness that highlights the sense of place and terror. The characters mostly go nameless, putting the reader at a slight distance, despite the first-person perspective. This distance allows for the magic in the story to be gradually defined and for the gruesome procedures and copious amounts of viscera to pack a dreadfully medical punch. Instead of squealing with gory delight, the body horror would make me squirm. Sometimes, I would have to take a little lap.
The plague doctor feels a sense of responsibility to intervene on the Surgeons’ dominion over the children, even though the children seem miserably content with the promise of eternal life stretched out before them. The Plague Doctor is constantly urging the Mermaid to stay a bit longer, to help them in their mission to facilitate these children’s escape from the pain their leaders encourage them to endure.
Their dynamic is sexy in a tortured, delicious, emo way.
On the other hand, the narrator is a creature of extreme hunger; when her doctor calls on her to engage empathetically, the most she can offer is a fresh perspective. If these children want to participate in this power play, who are they to intervene? This disagreement is where the characters’ intimacy develops. As they try to figure out how to approach these all-powerful beings, each develops a deeper understanding of the other as a person, monster, or being and makes space for the other’s values. Their dynamic is sexy in a tortured, delicious, emo way.
Khaw’s strengths are as a writer and world builder
For me, the further into the novel we get, the more the allegorical tone of the novel seems to slip away. The characters are rendered a bit awkwardly at the end as if there’s too much color in their cheeks. As things crackle to a fiery climax, the book rewards the mermaid and her plague doctor for their endurance, but I don’t feel very relieved for them. I thought that the novella’s themes would have come together more strongly if the story had been harsher with them at the end. Ultimately, Khaw’s strengths are as a writer and world builder – the taiga they offer for us to explore is completely immersive, rich with thought-provoking symbolism, and a playful approach to archetypes. It certainly sent shivers down my spine.
Get your copy of Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy here!
