We had a lively chat today about The Salt Path by “Raynor Winn” which some of us had read once or more and others had dipped into, having been put off by the book’s adverse publicity which The Observer published three days after we had chosen it as our book to discuss. 

Most of us felt that the “memoir” was well-written and it was understandable that it should have become a best seller, with a few caveats such as the level of detail in an account written retrospectively, the absence of reference to the author’s grown-up children, an emphasis on victimhood, and so on. We all felt increasingly as our discussion progressed, however, that the Observer’s revelations and subsequent publicity regarding the author’s serious financial dishonesty and other probable untruths in her account meant that the whole book was suspect. Presented as a novel it could have been an uplifting tale but as a purportedly honest memoir it has now lost credibility.

We also talked about some other long journeys in literature and film, including The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and we chose this author to be our writer of the month for October 23rd.