Salt Dancers by Ursula Hegi

Salt Dancers is the story of a woman coming to terms with her own history as an abused child before she gives birth to a child she never planned to have.  Like most of Hegi’s books, the novel is intensely emotional, and deals with questions of childhood, family, abandonment, loss, friendship . . .  the biggies.

I love everything the woman writes, but I didn’t like this one quite as much as I liked the novels set in Germany.  I wanted a bit more of a story to surface connecting the protagonist and the father of her child.  I wanted her brother to have a bit more to say for his decision to allow her to be abused for years.  And Hegi wants us to want those things–I get that.  I would just have liked a bit clearer of a pay off, I guess.  But still, a very good book.

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