num_pages: 261
description: Binh, a Vietnamese cook, flees Saigon in 1929, disgracing his family to serve as a galley hand at sea. The taunts of his now-deceased father ringing in his ears, Binh answers an ad for a live-in cook at a Parisian household, and soon finds himself employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.Toklas and Stein hold court in their literary salon, for which the devoted yet acerbic Binh serves as chef, and as a keen observer of his "Mesdames" and their distinguished guests. But when the enigmatic literary ladies decide to journey back to America, Binh is faced with a monumental choice: will he, the self-imposed "exile," accompany them to yet another new country, return to his native Vietnam, or make Paris his home?
language: English
title: The Book of Salt
titlecomplete: The Book of Salt
genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Literary Fiction, LGBT, Novels, Asian Literature, Queer, Food, Fiction, France
ratings_count: 6002
places: Paris, North Carolina, Saigon
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Stonewall Book Award
category: Literature, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Guardian First Book Award
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Gay Fiction, awardedAt: 1293868800000
name: Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, awardedAt: 1262332800000
name: Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature
category: Adult Fiction Honor
publisher: Mariner Books