“A thing is not necessarily true,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “because a man dies for it.” Belief is a tricky thing and a driver of human behavior, even in life-or-death situations. In the Acknowledgements of her latest novel, THE SALT KING, Natasha Pulley notes that she had a question: “What is it like to believe?” Here she places a young Jesuit priest from a curious background into a coming apocalypse, testing his beliefs while much of humanity seems to be dying around him because of their own beliefs.

Avelyn Brocken was born in Hreodwater, a small kingdom that is not really part of England. The ancient culture there is centered on the salt mine and its sleeping King. At 16, Avelyn, betrothed to a powerful matriarch of another clan and poised to grow into the role of a witch, suffers the devastating loss of his entire clan in a terrible accident. Father Cai Li, a Welsh priest on pilgrimage to Hreodwater, either rescues or kidnaps Avelyn, depending on one’s perspective. He takes him to Vatican City and trains him as a Jesuit.

"The themes of belief, the power of religious and cultural institutions and traditions, romantic love and obligations are all addressed with both honesty and intensity, making for an entertaining and thoughtful read."

Avelyn and Father Li develop a deep and true friendship, and Avelyn is mostly content in his Catholic life far from the songs of the dreaming Salt King. But when a disabled priest visiting Hreodwater first begins to walk and then, somehow, turns into a pillar of salt, Avelyn is sent to investigate the miracle. Back home after over 10 years away, his old faith and his new one confront each other as the Salt King starts to wake. 

In Hreodwater, Avelyn’s former self can no longer lay buried as he sees the salt light that illuminates his birthplace and comes face to face with the people, myths and rituals he thought he left behind forever. The Catholic pilgrims who gather there confront the gaps in his beliefs as they, like the healed and then-salt-pillared man, seem to be healing. But it is a mysterious and beautiful man named Jericho Calder who really provokes Avelyn. Jericho is an agoraphobic doctor living close to the Hreodwater salt mine, tending to visitors and mostly shunned by the locals. An avowed atheist, critical of the Roman Catholic Church and Avelyn’s prior and current belief systems, Jericho seems to know more about Hreodwater than he lets on. When the King’s waking begins to have global implications, Jericho may have the answers humanity needs. 

While the salt light starts burning brighter in Hreodwater, both healing and destroying, and waking ancient ghosts, similar events are taking place at salt mines across the world. At an archaeological site on the Jordan side of the Dead Sea, a long-buried, silver-clad tower is uncovered, and the team working there think they have radiation poisoning. Two nuclear safety inspectors meet onsite to inspect it. Like Avelyn and Jericho, they become fast friends and immediate partners in an end-times battle where belief --- or perhaps the lack of it --- is the key to survival.

THE SALT KING is a sprawling, strange, fantastic and ambitious novel, blending conventions of literary and speculative fiction with fantasy. The ending is a bit messy and rushed. However, the world- and culture-building is strong and does a lot of the heavy lifting, providing a great setting for Pulley’s interesting and well-drawn characters to explore difficult ideas. The themes of belief, the power of religious and cultural institutions and traditions, romantic love and obligations are all addressed with both honesty and intensity, making for an entertaining and thoughtful read.