2006-04-23

Week 16, Book 15: The Salt Palace

Defrain, Darren. The Salt Palace.. It would be easy to characterize this book as one of the dust jacket blurbs does: as a small narrative positioned above footnotes about the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Utah Jazz. The footnotes aren't just marginalia, but a whole other narrative—or, rather, two—in their own right. In fact, in one instance, when the narrator is unable to continue his story temporarily, there's a whole chapter that's nothing but a footnote, that itself has two footnotes.

However, that would be selling the main narrative short. It's the story of a young man born and raised in the Mormon church, now... not necessarily lapsed, but certainly off the spiritual path his family and faith would have chosen for him. He sets off on a road trip back home to Utah, which not coincidentally mirrors the exodus of early Mormons from the Midwest to the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Along the way is adventure, misadventure, and self-discovery.

Unfortunately, the ending is somewhat abrupt, after veering in a direction that left me wondering if it was supposed to be real or imagined. I could have done with more closure, but then again maybe that's the point of modern literature.