Synopses & Reviews
When Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith met in a creative writing class in graduate school, they both confessed to writing about God. They bonded one night while reading the Book of Ruth and came to truly understand the unlikely friendship of Ruth and Naomi. In these two Old Testament women, they witnessed a beautiful spiritual friendship and a way of walking with one another toward God.
But how could they travel this path together when they would be separated by distance and time and leading busy lives as they established marriages and careers? They decided to write letters to each other—at first, for each day of Lent, but those days extended into years. Their letters became a memoir in real time and reveal deeply personal and profound accounts of conversion, motherhood, and crushing tragedy; through it all, their faith and friendship sustained them.
Told through the timeless medium of letters—in prose that is raw and intimate, humorous and poetic—Love & Salt is at its core the emotional struggle of how one spiritual friendship is formed and tested in tragedy, tempered and proven in hope.
Review
"
Love and Salt is a spiritual memoir times two, and a timely reminder of what treasures may come when you give yourself time to sit in silence, pen and paper in hand."
- Elizabeth Duffy, The Constant Convert
Review
"As I choose my own Lenten practice, I know I will be accompanied by... the articulate and brave writers, Amy and Jessica, of Love and Salt."- Elizabeth Nordquist, A Musing Amma
Review
"
Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters is the kind of book that you start recommending to other people before you’ve even finished it.”
–Ellen Painter Dollar, Patheos.com
Review
“Their letter-writing takes on that tone common to those of us who have read the exchanges between C.S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken. Intimate missives about God and doubt. Imploring questions about the mysteries of life and the certainty of death.”- Karen Spears Zacharias, Patheos
Review
“I want to shove this book into the hands of everyone with a skewed, incomplete vision of what it means to live a faithful Christian life ... Here is a testimony to what the life of faith is really like. It is messy. It is lovely. It is heartbreaking. It is joyful. It is paradox. It is true.”- Ellen Painter Dollar, No Easy Choice
Review
“This book is sincere in the most beautiful expression of that word. You read a part of the two women’s souls… feel yourself wrenched along lives filled with questions… I have no doubt that, a year from now, I will still be raving about this book. It is one of the best examples of 'spiritual memoir' I have ever read, told in conversation and by real people … Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended.”- Sarah Reinhard, The Snoring Scholar
Review
“Love & Salt is an achingly beautiful new book … each [letter] a deep soul dive that leaves you savoring, while yearning for the next – revealing an exquisite, honest, heart-breaking and ultimately hopeful portrait of two lives deeply lived, contemplated, shared, and redeemed in the context of the search for God.”- Debra Arca, Managing Editor Patheos
Review
“Without giving too much away, I can safely tell you that this book is
life-changing… The reading is so enjoyable, I stayed up far past my bedtime, enraptured by the letters.”
- Laura Booz, Blogger Behave, Ten Million Miles
Review
“The first word that comes to mind in describing Jess and Amy’s letters to each other is luxurious … the authors held each day up like a prism to examine for its various light and dark effects … They also chronicle the aesthetic evolution of two very gifted writers.”- Elizabeth Duffy, The Constant Convert
Review
"Combining a modern sensibility with ancient spiritual wisdom, Love and Salt vividly demonstrates how two friends can become companions on the road to God."
--The 2014 Christopher Awards
"There's so much to love here: two articulate women who are not afraid to share their doubts and flaws as well as their joys and discoveries. It's not that much of a stretch to call this something like an epistolary novel: you'll get involved in their lives. You'll wonder how the story is going to turn out. You'll encounter love and loss, crises and triumphs, but throughout it hear these moving, honest voices—hungry for God yet vulnerable, wise, and true to one another."
--Gregory Wolfe, publisher of IMAGE
Review
“This book is sincere in the most beautiful expression of that word. You read a part of the two women’s souls… feel yourself wrenched along lives filled with questions… I have no doubt that, a year from now, I will still be raving about this book.
It is one of the best examples of 'spiritual memoir' I have ever read, told in conversation and by real people … Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended.”- Sarah Reinhard,
The Snoring Scholar
"It is hard not to treat this book, so uncommonly honest, almost with reverence, for within its pages lies such personal and raw emotion that treating it with anything less would feel wrong."
--Catholic News Service
"Love and Salt is full of sacramental imagination. Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith render things like a walk through a graveyard, a dream about an elevator, and a Neil Young song into something else entirely…These writers are practiced at seeing Catholicly: casting a sacramental glance at the world."
--The Christian Century
Synopsis
Love & Salt portrays friendship as women have always known it—as something serious, sacred, and redemptive—and tells the story of a spiritual friendship between two women, based on their shared exploration of God. When Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith met in a creative writing workshop at graduate school, they both confessed to writing about God. They became fast friends.
But how could they travel this path together, when they would be separated by distance and time, and leading busy lives as they established marriages and careers? They decided on writing letters to each other—at first, for each day of Lent, but those days extended into years. Their letters became a memoir in real time, revealing deeply personal and profound accounts of conversion, motherhood, and crushing tragedy.
Told through the timeless medium of letters, Love & Salt is at its core the story of how one special friendship is formed, tested, and ultimately strengthened—and how God is both the source and summit of that relationship.
About the Author
Jessica Mesman Griffith has an MFA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh and has published essays in
Elle,
Creative Nonfiction, and
Godspy. She lives in Virginia with her husband, writer David Griffith, and their two children.
Amy Andrews has an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and her spiritual writing has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, and the Bellingham Review. She teaches mathematics at Northwestern University and lives in Evanston with her husband and two children.