The Salt Grows Heavy

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw is a hauntingly unique horror novella. Rather than relying on conventional scares, it captivates with poetic, almost hypnotic prose. The horror appears in fleeting moments, but the true strength lies in its rich, layered language, making the reading experience strangely soothing yet unsettling.

It starts with a mermaid, standing in the ruins of the kingdom that thought it could contain her, and a mysterious plague doctor, stitched together from many parts, deciding to travel together. They come across a strange cult, worshiping a trio of "surgeons" conducting some *really* unethical human experiments. This is a dark and grisly tale that should be a small horror classic.

Why don't I rate the story higher? Because the most terrifying part of it is Khaw's tortured prose. Each page is littered with wince-inducing sentences like "in the penumbra, the fading dusk gorgeted by coral and gold" and "the zenith of her head barely grazing the circumference of the plague doctor's shoulders." Half the time the flowery words don't even quite show more mean what Khaw seems to think they do; it's like they spent all their time flipping through a thesaurus to find the longest synonyms they could without giving any consideration to the words' subtle variations of meaning.

Received via NetGalley. show less

This book was a horror story but with a welcome depth of emotion - anger, pity, love, passion. Author Cassandra Khaw was SO skilled at making me want to never put the book down, but with only one eye barely open in dread of what was to come. LOL The writing was pure poetry; I absolutely loved the WORDS that Khaw used. (I actually had to look up a few words because I wasn't familiar with them, and when I read their definitions, I thought, "Well, there couldn't have been a more perfect word for what they are describing here.")

"The Salt Grows Heavy" is a horror take on the traditional "The Little Mermaid" fairy tale. And, boy, do you have to have a stomach for gore. But you will never experience gore and violence so poetically described. show more LOL

I loved this book, and it was quick read. It was my first Cassandra Khaw book, and now I want to read all of their books, if for nothing else than just to re-experience the pure beauty of their language. show less

This review was originally published on The Fantasy Review

*Disclaimer: I recieved a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

If you are looking for a dark, prose-forward, and violent fairy-tale, look no further than The Salt Grows Heavy.

We’ve all heard the classic story before: A mermaid gives up her voice to be with the human man she loves. But this story is much darker than the Disney movie you might be thinking about. This mermaid loses her voice when the humans cut her tongue out from her body. When she and her human lover have daughters, these daughters aren’t messing around. They kill all of the humans, and our mermaid protagonist is now on the run. She meets up with an androgynous plague doctor with a show more dark past, and they travel together until they reach a small village where the children play murderous games, and the government is controlled by three prophet-surgeons. The Mermaid and Plague Doctor have one primary goal: survive.

There are so many wonderful elements to this novella that I don’t even know where to begin.

Khaw’s prose is beautiful and transportive. Their prose is evocative of the old fairy tale style, but with an elevated and modern twist. Khaw took the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and more and somehow further twisted their narratives into the gothic and horrifying. It is obvious that Khaw carefully selected each and every word to achieve just the right connotation; just the right emotional response; just the right poetic beat. I found myself often needing to go back and re-read passages because I was so swept up in Khaw’s words that I wasn’t actually following the story. (I was also glad that I read this book on a Kindle because there were a lot of words that I had to look up in the dictionary!)

Take just the opening passages of the book. I read those first few pages at least three times as I was swept away by Khaw’s lyrical description of the Mermaid’s daughters murdering their father while their house burned down. It even took me a moment to realize that that was happening because the prose was so poetic, so metaphorical.

Khaw populates her world with mysterious characters that come to (eerie and sinister) life. Both the Mermaid the Plague Doctor are well-drawn and complex characters. The Mermaid is our POV character throughout the novella, and so we see the world through her lens. She is a character who thought she found love and happiness, but was quickly escorted into a terrible situation that only got worse. As readers, it is easy to empathize with her plight, and we cheer her on through her trials and triumphs. However, to me, and maybe it was because they weren’t the POV character, the more interesting of our two main characters was the Plague Doctor. Khaw slowly peels away their mask (both literally and figuratively) as we get to know their dark past and foreboding future. The Plague Doctor brings a jovial sadness to the novella that felt so very real and so very human.

This novella is not for the easily grossed out or faint of heart. Khaw never goes too far, and the horror elements never feel exploitative, but their descriptions of the dark, bloody, and gross things that the Mermaid and Plague Doctor encounter and experience made my skin tingle. I am one of those people who gets a small pain in my knee if someone is talking about how they hurt their knee, and so I was experiencing these little sensations from the images that Khaw conjured up in this little novella. The book isn’t scary, but it is dread-inducing as Khaw takes us through this mysteriously horrifying village located within this greater horrifying world.

Through all of the body horror, the sinister surgeons, and the violent villagers, this is a story of love between two broken people crossing a shattered landscape together. Despite its short length, the relationship between the Mermaid and the Plague Doctor grows organically. It’s not a fantasy-romance by any means, but it two people finding each both despite and because of the macabre.

I always feel that my role as a reviewer is to help set reader expectations for the books that I review. So, I will say this – if you are primarily a plot reader than this book may not be for you. Readers who do not care about the actual prose or writing of the book (or who value other elements of fiction writing more) may find this novella over-written (some may even call the prose purple) and bloated in its writing. While the Khaw definitely revels in some of the horror elements, particularly in the latter half of the novella, much of the novella is also slow and contemplative. If you aren’t swept up in Khaw’s world and writing in the first few pages, then nothing the novella does later really changes that.

For me, the entire thing really worked and I enjoyed spending an evening in Khaw’s messed up world. This was my first book by Cassandra Khaw, and I will now make sure to go seek out more.

Concluding Thoughts:
This novella won’t be for everyone as The Salt Grows Heavy is unlike anything I’ve ever read. It is a gorgeously grotesque fairy-tale lead by two memorable characters finding love in a disturbing world. Readers who love lyrical prose, body horror, and very slanted fairy tale retellings should definitely check this one out. show less

"There is nothing wrong with being a monster."

WOW! For being so short, this one packs a solid punch. It's gory and gross and brutal. . .and beautiful. I like that it gave two different versions of belief - belief in someone to love versus belief in a religion or god(s) and their promises.

The deaths and repeated body consuming was pretty gory. If you can stomach the details, the stuff in between is just beautiful. There were so many lines I wanted to write down, so many little moments that held my breath. The use of "they" was so good too. I loved this little story. I definitely see myself visiting it again. And what an ending. I loved it!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not show more affect my opinion regarding the book. show less

I was not expecting to be moved by a horror novel featuring a killer mermaid and a frankenstein’s monster. But moved I was! I totally fell in love with the characters as they fell in love with each other. I swooned but don’t get me wrong, the book is gruesome and scary. It really packs an emotional punch to the face. I loved it.

Well, that's positively dripping with atmosphere in every single word choice. I appreciate how unapologetic it is.
It's short, and yet I was ready to be done with it... and yet I'll also probably remember it... and yet I won't seek out any more. You know what? I'm glad I read it, I'm just sorry it wasn't during the winter, and now I'm done with this style for a while.