The Salt of the Universe - by Amy Leach

Book Synopsis

Named a Recommended Read by The New Yorker

A book of mischief and improvisation that answers fundamentalism with rage, music, and delight in this earth.

A book of mischief and improvisation, The Salt of the Universe answers fundamentalism of all kinds with rage, music, and delight. It asks questions that are urgent, impossible, necessary, and irresistible: Where does freedom live? Why does it sometimes feel so good to be told what to do? What on heaven and earth is the Apicklypse?

These and other inquiries arise from Amy Leach's experience: playing fiddle and piano (and sometimes the organ); her childhood in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and its many prohibitions (coffee, dancing) and emphasis on the apocalypse. After listening to thousands of sermons from a variety of pulpits, here Leach is offering one of her own. She borrows the words of an old hymn, and says: "This is my story, this is my song." Accompanied by four-year-old mystics and six-year-old geologists, bears and butterflies and willow trees, she praises not obedience but freedom, not secondhand but firsthand thoughts, not homogeneity but heterogeneity. She champions Emily Dickinson and Jesus over interfering prophets, questions over answers, the soul over the institution, Miles Davis over miles of marching.

The Salt of the Universe argues against argument, and against restrictions of all kinds and their limiting effect on our humanity. In this whirlwind of linguistic cartwheels, philosophical shenanigans, and praise songs to the cosmos, Leach reminds us: we must run toward mischief, music, love, the wonders of nature, and the wild joys of all that we don't yet know.

Review Quotes

"The Salt of the Universe is an incandescent book that is at once timeless and also exquisitely made for this moment. Its magnificence and effervescent wordplay delight and surprise on every page--in other words, Amy Leach has gifted us with another stunner of a book."
--Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

"Comic essays."
--The New Yorker

"An exuberant and frequently delightful exploration of what a freer, less fundamentalist approach to life can be."
--Bryan Ness, Spectrum Magazine

"Whimsical, frank, funny, shrewd, and ever unpredictable, Leach's phrasing and concepts continue to surprise, delight, and edify . . . Playful, celebratory, wise, impertinent, Amy Leach turns her lyricism and wit on a fundamentalist upbringing and the wealth of experiences beyond."
--Shelf Awareness

"A madcap, whip-smart theology of joy."
--Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count Diary

"I was recently giving a sermon and found myself spontaneously quoting from Amy Leach's singular and surprising new book. I expect many readers will find their own lives troubled (in the Biblical sense) and enlightened by her fresh perceptions. She has lived into a hard-earned and entirely credible wisdom, the best evidence for which is her irrepressible sense of humor. One feels companioned by this book, and sorry when it ends."
--Christian Wiman, author of Zero at the Bone

"The Salt of the Universe is a closely observed account of belief, obedience, and dissent. Amy Leach writes about faith with warmth and wit."
--Raven Leilani, author of Luster

"Lover of Shimmer the hamster and loather of dogma, Amy Leach offers her readers a dazzling world in these earthly parables. They are, in their tender humor, the finest of wisdom teachings."
--Eliza Griswold, author of Circle of Hope

"Essays that explore fundamentalism, nature, music, and wombats . . . [with] wit [and] humor."
--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Amy Leach is the author of The Everybody Ensemble and Things That Are. She grew up in Texas and earned her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and numerous other publications, including Granta, A Public Space, Orion, Tin House, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is a recipient of a Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Leach lives in Montana.