The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

The Lost Salt Gift of Blood is a collection of short stories by Canadian author Alistair MacLeod. It was originally published in 1976. All of the stories contained is the collection were later republished in the book Island, together with other works by Alistair MacLeod.

According to the blurb of the book; "The evocative and haunting collection is set Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland, a remote region where Gaelic is still spoken, old legends live on, and the same cold sea that washes the Hebrides beats against the granite cliffs. With a tearing lyricism, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood lays bare the joys, the fears, the darkness, and the shining hope of communities whose isolation is at once a curse and a blessing."

The style of the writing contained in the book is such that the descriptions of the people, their thoughts, fears and eccentricities, as well as the detailed and warm descriptions of the events in the book are the main focus, rather than the events themselves having any complexity.

Read more about The Lost Salt Gift Of Blood:  Stories, Critical Acclaim

Famous quotes containing the words lost, salt and/or blood:

    I can never suppose this country so far lost to all ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant America independence; if that could ever be adopted I shall despair of this country being ever preserved from a state of inferiority and consequently falling into a very low class among the European States.
    George III (1738–1820)

    Come, dear children, let us away;
    Down and away below!
    Now my brothers call from the bay,
    Now the great winds shoreward blow,
    Now the salt tides seaward flow;
    Now the wild white horses play,
    Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

    When logics die,
    The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
    And blood jumps in the sun;
    Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)