Salt of the Earth: A Mother, A Daughter, A Murder
The title of this book refers neither to the murderer who destroyed the hard-won tranquillity of a young couple and their three children, nor to the 12-year-old victim, but to the victim's mother. Without subtracting an iota from the uniqueness of her story, Jack Olsen portrays Elaine Gere as one of those heroically strong American women whose lives usually pass unheralded. We follow her indomitable spirit from a childhood in squalor, to marriage and family, to the disappearance of her daughter, through the baffling and enervating aftermath of a high-profile crime, through the years when her devastated husband flounders in alcoholism and turns violent, to the final healing of her broken family. David Guterson, author ofSnow Falling on Cedars, writes, "Salt of the Earthconstitutes a literary achievement of the highest order. It is the complexity of life, its mystery and beauty, its violence and love and terrible strangeness, that Jack Olsen forces us to confront here."