Salt of the earth
Subtitle: one family's journey through the violent American landscape
By: Jack Olsen.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
Subjects: Gere, Elaine, 1945-; Gere, Brenda, 1972-1985; Kidnapping -- United States -- Case studies; Missing children -- United States -- Case studies; Problem families -- United States -- Case studies; Mothers -- United States -- Biography; Wives -- United States -- Biography
Genres: Case studies.; Biography.
Description: Salt of the Earth is the true story of a courageous woman who survived a hellish twentieth-century nightmare. Mob violence, injustice, kidnapping, murder, and suicide were the black holes in the awful astronomy of Elaine Gere's life. Somehow she had to summon the courage to endure: to honor her beloved dead and to rebuild the shattered lives of the sons who depended on her strength.

Jack Olsen has been lauded for his psychological insights into the most violent criminals in such previous masterworks as Doc, The Misbegotten Son, and Predator, but he has never overlooked their victims. By viewing the world through the eyes of Elaine Gere and her devastated family, he finds the core values that enabled them not only to survive and flourish, but, in the end, to triumph.