Salem "Sal" Soletsky

### Relatives

Elisabet Gorbacheva (Mother) (Элизабет Горбачёва) Georgi Soletsky (Father) (Георги М. Солетский)Several unnamed siblings, 4

## Biographical information

### Place of birth

Sievierodonetsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine)

## Appearances

### Debut

Chapter 3, part III

Salem is a friend of Adams and Michael. He is a petrol station worker, a Bulgarian immigrant, and at first meeting he casually mentions to Michael that he has stage four blood cancer. Upon Michael asking why he isn't in hospice, Mr. Soletsky says that he doesn't have any intention of surviving his illness "because he doesn't really care,' and looks down at his cane and asks: "The hell happened to you?"

Michael liked his indifference to 'just about everything' and how he was not one for pity, that being the reason they became friends.

## Biography

### Upbringing

Salem was extremely poor as a child and was raised Roman Catholic in a Bulgarian family being one of five children. His family had a fluctuating housing situation, moving from country to country while his father fought for the Bulgarian military, and him and his siblings 'knew how to spot if he was coming back.' On the days his father was arranged to come home, which was every few weeks, him and his siblings gathered in the front yard from six PM to eight PM, and if they did not see a figure come through the split in the wood, he was dead. His father did not come back during the winter for the day of Immaculate Conception. His siblings and mother were 'silent as dead rats' during dinner that night. Salem is not shy to say that he believes his mother was somewhat relieved due to his father often beating her, though he recounts her crying so loud that it was 'practically screaming.'

His mother, according to him, was as following: "A tough, Slavic beast of a bitch. Bears were scared of her." He is indifferent towards his childhood, showing mixed emotions when determining its healthiness, and says that it was "so-so. Any batshit Eastern or Southern European childhood; not good, not bad, just crazy."

### Further life

It's unknown how or why Salem went to London, and the only context given is that 'he felt like it.'

## Trivia

* Salem shares similarities with Joy Division's former lead singer and guitarist *Ian Curtis,* who died aged 23 by suicide, and was epileptic.
* His favorite albums are Iggy Pop's *Lust for Life (1977),* and *The Essential Skeeter Davis.* Both Skeeter Davis and Iggy Pop were his favorite musicians, and both had morbid life stories and themes; Pop had a cocaine addiction and struggled with it during the seventies, while Davis's mother committed suicide. Iggy Pop's first album *The Idiot (1977)* was named after Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1868 novel of the same name, which happens to be one of Salem's favorite literary pieces.
* In his first ever appearance, Salem is seen reading '*Salem's Lot* by Stephen King.
* His mother was half Arabian and half Volgar Tartar, and immigrated to Russia in the sixties. She met Salem's father in Moscow, while she was aged 15 and he was aged 40. She died giving birth to Salem at only 18; Salem's father gave the children to a poorhouse, and was never seen by any of his children again. The marriage was interfaith, 'a bad omen from the start' Salem comments: his mother was a Tartar Muslim with Jewish heritage, while his father was Eastern Orthodox.
* Salem is an avid Fleetwood Mac fan.