Fiction/Literary
Salted with Salt and the Altar of Silence: Two Novellas
Jason Akley
Outskirts Press
2007
ISBN: 1432704540
Soft cover
223 pages
The awakening of young men is the focus of Jason Akley’s novella collection, Salted with Salt and the Altar of Silence. These stories provide an opening into the world of boys becoming men, allowing a glimpse of what motivates growth and what holds it back.
Sol embarks on a week-long trip in “Salted with Salt” that begins at his home south of Nashville. The journey leads him to a river camp near the Smoky Mountains where his college roommate, Brendan, is working for the summer and then to New York to visit with his friend Ben. He takes a few necessities, a cooler of food, and a journal in which he pens stories that he hopes will lead him to a future as a writer. Leaving behind concerned parents, Sol travels by day and sleeps in the car at night. His short stories border the chapters relaying the young man’s journey. They begin as slender pieces with disjointed plots that expand into fuller tales about the complicated lives of simple people much like Sol and his friends. As Sol completes his time in New York and heads back home, there is not an overwhelming sense that he has made an extraordinary transformation. But there is the feeling that Sol returns home with a deeper understanding of himself and that he has become seasoned and mature.
In the “Altar of Silence,” the story’s narrator, John, lives the simplest life of three former roommates living in California. John works in a bank, is married with two children, owns a home, and has a degree in history. His untainted lifestyle is the perfect backdrop for the volatile stories of his friends Ray and Jim. Ray starts out overweight, shy, and haunted by a traumatic incident in his past. Jim, who provides the primary focus for the story, is something of a vagabond with an enticing smile that draws women and keeps him in beer and places to crash. Jim falls in love with a wealthy, flighty girl, but when they drift apart, Jim’s attempt at standing still ends.
The changes that take place in the “Altar of Silence” are somewhat deceptive. Ray loses weight, gets lucky with a girl, and moves on to gain career success. Jim returns to California after working in Alaska and settles back into the life he’d started on, including his morning meditations on the beach. John appears stagnant. But there are spots where John’s growth is exposed during his observations of the lives his friends have made: “I envied Jim, because I would have gone to Alaska, if in a dream I could alter my personality. But I didn’t live my dreams and I knew I would never go (218).” John’s growth is seen in his acceptance of his limitations and the extent of risk he is willing to take. These are the lessons that are the hardest to gain and he does so without so much as a ripple in his fluid life.
Akley gives his readers detail but also uses broad themes that make following the lines of the stories a challenge. The writing seems to mirror the moodiness and distance of the age group depicted in the book. Salted with Salt and the Altar of Silence offers insight into the mysteries of young adulthood and leaves the reader with the feeling of having been feed something substantial.
Melissa Levine
For Independent Professional Book Reviewers
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