As Meat Loves Salt - Softcover

With her first book, As Meat Loves Salt, Maria McCann joins a small, esteemed company of writers--Umberto Eco and Gore Vidal among them--whose historical novels are meticulously researched, politically acute, and rattling good reads. Set in the 17th century, during the English civil war, As Meat Loves Salt follows the misadventures of Jacob, born a gentleman but raised a servant, whose overdeveloped sense of personal dignity leads him from one crisis to another. When the book opens, he is already a murderer. Within a hundred pages he becomes a rapist and a thief. All this is perfect training for a military career, and Jacob soon finds himself in Cromwell's New Model army and in thrall to a charismatic man named Ferris. "It was all pre-ordained," says Jacob later, when the men have deserted together, "there had never been a place where I could have leapt free of the net." Rich with period detail, multilayered, and erotic, this is a big, delicious novel with a hint of crunchy intellection. Expect a lost weekend. --Regina Marler

"This is an outstanding debut novel, a fresh and unusual achievement . . . As the title implies, it has all the dirt, stink, rasp and flavour of the time." - The Daily Telegraph (London)

Torn in two by a vicious Civil War, Seventeenth Century England was the scene of extraordinary violence. Among the soldiers travelling across the country from one deadly battle to another is Jacob Cullen, a former servant who dreams of baptizing himself with the blood of battle into a new life after the war. Only his brewing erotic obsession with a fellow fighter threatens his plans.

A dark, erotic tale of passion and obsession, AS MEAT LOVES SALT is a gripping portrait of England beset by war, and the harrowing tale of a man on the edge of madness. Hailed as a masterpiece, this is an extraordinary first novel by a most original new voice in fiction.

"Creeps up on the reader from behind, gathering an emotional momentum and intensity . . . it imaginatively re-creates the mentality of a society racked by war and intoxicated by radical new ideas of freedom and change. "--Times Literary Supplement (London)

"An inventive and vigorous debut novel set in 17th century England at a time of revolution ... urgent and energetic, full of voluptuous descriptions of food, paintings and lifestyles, as well as the war scenes. [Maria McCann's] language is bold and alive, and the reader is drawn into the story right from the start."-- Independent on Sunday (London)

Maria McCann was born in Liverpool in 1956. Since 1985 she has been a lecturer in English at a Somerset college. As Meat Loves Salt is her first book.

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