‘Salt House Place’ by Jamie Lee Sogn. Lake Union, 323 pages, $28.99
Jamie Lee Sogn tackles an insightful double-header of a plot about how teenage friendships can lift up a young woman, or nearly destroy her when they turn toxic, and why a cult may be appealing.
Sogn delves deep in “Salt House Place,” while avoiding cliches, to give equal attention to two seemingly unrelated themes in her character-driven debut.
When she was 15, Delia Albio and her best friends, Cara Snyder and Zelda “Zee” Harris, were inseparable in their Pacific Northwest hometown — until the day at the lake when Zee disappeared. Despite multiple searches, Zee’s body was never found. Delia and Cara continued their friendship. But a few months after Cara left the town of Portsgrove to attend boarding school, Delia’s letters were returned, and the two lost touch.
Now a decade later and living in Seattle, Delia continues to be affected by Zee’s disappearance. She works as a freelance legal copywriter — a job that allows her to work from home — and she relishes the solitude. She has few friends, avoids long-term relationships. She also has a debilitating fear of open water, shying away even from walks on a beach.
Then she gets an email from Cara, saying she will be back in Portsgrove and would love to catch up. But when she arrives, Delia is told by Cara’s brother, Tom, that his sister has disappeared. Cara, he says, was deeply involved with Artemis Wellness, an empowerment group for women that seems more like a cult, bent on manipulating its members.
To find Cara, Delia decides to attend Artemis’ retreat on the Oregon coast. Cara is no longer there, but Delia meets some intelligent women with whom she forms a fast friendship. Soon, the group’s more sinister, controlling side emerges.
Sogn delivers a slow-boil mystery in “Salt House Place,” following a growing trend of character-driven mysteries in which the action is subtle. Readers may see a resemblance to Nxivm, the cult whose leaders were accused of myriad crimes, including identity theft, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice. But Sogn carefully makes Artemis its own entity.
Delia is a richly hued character, driven by the past but progressing into a more confident woman as she searches for her friend. As a teenager, she and Tom had a brief but intense romantic relationship. Their reconnection adds to Delia’s emotional growth, which includes re-evaluating her teenage friendships, wondering just how supportive Cara and Zee were, and whether they truly were close friends. Sogn caps “Salt House Place” with a stunning ending.
“Salt House Place” was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, an honor well deserved given Sogn’s affinity for plotting and characters.
Family fireworks
‘Fireworks Every Night’ by Beth Raymer. Random House, 240 pages, $27
Beth Raymer’s novel debut, “Fireworks Every Night,” melds her real-life memoir with fiction for a heart-wrenching, emotional laden story that explores a family’s tragic attempts just to survive. Raymer smoothly engulfs the story of the Borkoski family against the atmospheric background of Florida’s wilds, a setting that captures the trials of a once close-knit family torn apart.
Raymer introduces C.C. Borkoski on the eve of her wedding to the wealthy Alex Wellmans, whose family’s home has a breathtaking view of Long Island Sound. C.C. is taken aback to learn her estranged mother has been invited and may come. Her future in-laws thought they were doing her a favor, a kind of welcoming to the family, by inviting her mother. They could not be more wrong.
Flashbacks quickly show how C.C., the youngest daughter, has a ring-side seat to her family’s machinations, especially the deterioration of the marriage of her parents, who at first seem loving. When they were children, C.C. and her older sister, Lorraine, move with their parents from Ohio to Florida. The move is almost like running away because her family’s used car lot and home in Ohio were destroyed in a fire. Whether the fire was an accident or caused by her father, no one knows.
C.C.’s first impressions of Florida are “sweet and free,” based on complimentary orange slices offered at a rest stop. The family first stays in a KOA at Lion Country Safari, where others are trying to “regain their footing,” but soon settle in Loxahatchee where her father quickly gets a good job selling cars.
The good paycheck allows the family to live large and build their first home. C.C. settles in, finds friends and a boyfriend, and becomes a regional basketball star. But marital problems, jealousy, alcoholism and drug use overpower the family.
Raymer delivers a compelling, complete look at C.C. and her struggles in the compact “Fireworks Every Night,” a title that has many meanings.
Meet the author
Beth Raymer (“Fireworks Every Night”) will join author Melissa Broder (“Death Valley”) during the Miami Book Fair panel “Dark Comedy, Poignant Prose: Two Novels” at 2 p.m. Nov. 19 at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, Room 8201 (Building 8, Second Floor), 300 NE Second Ave., Miami. Visit miamibookfair.com for more information.