SOURCE: A review of The Salt Eaters, in The Black Scholar, Vol. 13, No. 6, Fall, 1982, p. 52.

Jackson is an American poet, short story writer, and dramatist. Below, she offers a highly favorable assessment of The Salt Eaters.

Some extraordinary books define their time. By so doing they become historical events. Some momentous books transform the sense of the time, the order. By so doing they become political movement. Some most rare books are a healing session: they cleanse, rename, baptize, and confirm us as adults, responsible intelligences. They are spiritual acts of a high order and dangerously wonderful.

Some stories, in their telling, extend the language to music; fine tuning the seeming diverse moments of reality into a divine order. By the author's authority we are permitted to see with an eye of the universe; in balancing this, the narrative logic pulls all into place. In this way Vision...