Salt Slow

by Julia Armfield
Salt Slow cover
Good Books rating 4.25
Short Story Collections
Technical
  • ID: 3836
  • Added: 2025-10-20
  • Updated: 2025-10-20
  • ISBN: 9781529012569
  • Publisher: Picador
  • Published: 2019-05-30
  • Reviews: 3

Salt Slow is a collection of short stories that delves into the lives of women, their bodies, and their experiences in society. Through a lens of isolation, obsession, and love, Julia Armfield crafts a world where the mundane becomes extraordinary. Women transform into insects, men turn to stone, and cities become insomniac, creating a constantly shifting landscape that mirrors the inner turmoil of its inhabitants. /n/n Praised for its melancholic power and distinct gothic style, this collection blends the mythic with the real, exploring themes of transformation and the human condition. Armfield's stories are poised to dazzle and shock, offering a unique and unforgettable reading experience.

Reviews
The Monthly Booking · 2020-04-26
compelling 4.75

The book is dark yet liberating, showcasing extraordinary imagination and vivid, magical storytelling. It is both compelling and utterly unique.

The reviewer finds the book's darkness to be its liberating strength, highlighting its extraordinary imagination and vivid, magical storytelling. They describe it as a compelling and utterly unique collection that stands out for its ability to captivate readers. The reviewer appreciates the seamless integration of fantastical and macabre elements, which make the stories both thrilling and unsettling. The prose is praised for its haunting quality, making the collection a memorable read.

Quick quotes

    Salt slow is a dark book, but that is precisely what sets it free.

    An extraordinary feat of imagination, it is vivid, magical and utterly compelling.

    It is the story exploring the collective power of women; a girl band who entrance and entrap their female followers to unprecedented levels of dedication...

The Guardian · 2019-06-09
exciting 4.50

The collection draws thrilling vigour from Armfield's vivid approach to dialled-up reality. An insomnia epidemic in one story highlights the author's talent for blending the uncanny with the familiar.

The reviewer is captivated by Armfield's ability to create a sense of thrilling vigour through her vivid and conscientious approach to reality. They highlight how the stories, such as one featuring an insomnia epidemic, masterfully blend the uncanny with the familiar. The prose is praised for its visceral and haunting quality, making the collection both unsettling and compelling. The reviewer appreciates the balance between the macabre and clever prose, which is enhanced by a subtle sense of humour.

Quick quotes

    These tales draw thrilling vigour from Armfield's conscientiously vivid approach to their dialled-up reality.

    An insomnia epidemic in one story...

    It's the satisfying lean towards the macabre and the metamorphic, balanced by wickedly clever prose and a sense of humour that seems to loom up...

Goodreads · 2019-05-30
mixed 3.50

The writing is brilliant and visceral, but the collection feels somewhat uneven. The prose is haunting and memorable.

The reviewer is torn about the collection, acknowledging Armfield's brilliant and visceral writing. They find the prose haunting and memorable, but feel that the collection is somewhat uneven. Despite this, the reviewer appreciates the author's ability to create a sense of unease and fascination. The stories are praised for their originality and the way they blend the familiar with the uncanny, making them both thrilling and unsettling.

Quick quotes

    Armfield's writing is brilliant - her prose is visceral and haunting.

    However, it's almost as if the collection is trying to be too many things at once.

    The prose is just a delight, wrong-footing the reader at every turn.

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