Silver and Salt

February 27, 2017
Family secrets and the burden of having a famous parent are at the center of Dymott’s novel. After the death of her father, 39-year-old Ruthie Hollingbourne, estranged from her family, returns to the Greek villa where she and her older sister, Vinny, spent parts of their childhood. Their father was the famous photographer Max Hollingbourne, and their mother, Sophie, an opera singer. Reunited, the two sisters can’t help but rehash old hurts. At the same time, Ruthie develops an unusual relationship with Annie, a young English girl whose parents are vacationing at the villa next door. There are flashbacks detailing the rarefied environment in which Ruthie and Vinny were raised, with a largely absent father and a mother driven slowly mad by her husband’s disinterest. Ruthie connected with her father through photography, which gave her an understanding of his art. In the end, past and present collide as Ruthie tries to achieve a personal artistic apotheosis. As with her previous novel, Every Contact Leaves a Trace, Dymott excels at creating a hothouse world for her characters to inhabit. Readers will be unprepared when the novel takes a decidedly surprising turn, and though the ending strains belief, the author makes it all hang together.

February 1, 2017
A famous photographer's daughters come to terms with his death in the talented Dymott's elegiac, devastating tale.After the 2003 death of famous photographer Max Hollingbourne, his daughters, Ruthie and Vinny, retreat to the family's villa in Greece, the scene of many dreamlike and bittersweet summers. Vinny is the responsible one, three years older than the volatile, sensitive Ruthie, and they mourn their father in very different ways, especially since Ruthie had been estranged from him for years. Dymott hints at tragedy to come during this final gathering, interweaving past and present and taking readers back to when Max first met 22-year-old Sophie in 1959 and made her his wife. Sophie gave up her singing career to raise Ruthie and Vinny, and Max was largely absent, traveling constantly for his work. Vinny always had an easy way with Max, something Ruthie envied, so when Ruthie asks that he teach her photography, she treasures the time in the darkroom, although his impatience with her was sometimes marked by cruelty and physical violence. Vinny and Ruthie are still little girls when their mother begins showing signs of mental illness, and she eventually leaves, marking a turning point for the girls and their father. Under the care of their Aunt Beatrice, whom they love dearly, the girls still long for Sophie, especially Ruthie, who, as an adult, eventually begins exhibiting similar symptoms to her mother. In 2003, a family moves in to the villa next door, including a young girl named Annie. Perhaps seeing herself in this girl, the 40-year-old Ruthie, a gifted photographer in her own right, is inspired to transcend anything she's ever created. The grueling and fascinating process of photographic development reads like its own sort of poetry in this gut-wrenching, achingly intimate look at grief and how closely art and life intertwine, for better or worse.

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Starred review from February 15, 2017
If only Vinny hadn't left for a short trip to Athens. And, yet, the gruesome discovery that awaits her on her return was the result of events that began years earlier, as this haunting novel slowly reveals. Vinny's sister, Ruthie, comes to stay with Vinny at their family's Greek villa following the death of their father, a renowned photographer known for his brutally honest and uncompromising work. He could be brutal and uncompromising at home, too. As the girls grew, they saw the devastating impact their father's behavior had on their mother, a former opera singer who slowly lost her grip on reality. Despite this, Ruthie becomes more and more entangled with her father, desperate for his approval as he tutors her in photography. The story of Ruthie's troubled journey into adulthood is delicately interspersed with an account of her days at the villa, the suspense of what will happen while Vinny is gone lending an aura of dread to even the most languid scenes. Psychologically acute, Silver and Salt will continue to grip readers long after its devastating conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2016

After 15 years, Ruthie returns to the Greek villa owned by her recently deceased father and settles into a kind of happiness despite memories of a mother gone mad. Then a haunted-looking little girl moves in next door. Sounds as elegantly chilling as Dymott's Every Contact Leaves a Trace, which received exceptional reviews.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2017

Ruthie (Roo) Hollingbourne is a troubled middle-aged Englishwoman determined to follow in the footsteps of her father, the late photographer Max Hollingbourne, who was a highly acclaimed artist in the 1960s. While she's staying at the family's villa in Greece, Ruthie's observation of an English family next door brings back disturbing memories of her childhood with sister Vinny. Max may have been a famed artist, but he was a terrible husband and father, and Ruthie's French mother, Sophie, long ago suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered. Now Ruthie's hold on reality seems to be slipping. The silver and salt of the title refer to methods of developing photographs in the days before digital photography, and the author herself sets scenes and lets them slowly develop, like an old-fashioned print in the darkroom. There is also a great contrast between the burning Mediterranean sun and the dark images crowding Ruthie's mind, as the story reaches its disquieting conclusion. VERDICT An original, visual approach to the often explored theme of how cruel and selfish parents can cause lifelong trauma for their children. For most readers. [See Prepub Alert, 10/10/16.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.