The Salt Eaters

The healer, Minnie, and her spirit guide, Old Wife, are also responsible for Velma’s transformation. Minnie performs a kind of spirit or faith healing. She is considered a “legendary spinster” (4), “mojo lady” (270), and “the real thing” (105). However, at the beginning of the novel, she stalls, doubting her own gift. This results in her getting into arguments with Old Wife in the psychic realm and asking Velma questions before beginning the healing in the physical realm. Minnie smells like “coconut cream” (219) and wears a “bright-red flouncy dress” (3). Her shawl, which she places over Velma, becomes symbolic during Velma’s change in mental health. Although she is not completely dynamic, Minnie, as well as Old Wife, is a round character.

Old Wife, now deceased and only present in the psychic realm, knew Minnie before her death. She was called “Old Karen, the Old One, Wilder’s woman, Old Wife [...] Karen Wilder” (52). While Minnie respects and leaves offerings for Yoruban gods, Old Wife is Christian and condemns communicating with the loa. Old Wife dislikes their presence at the healing. Minnie explains she can only ask for help from the loa, not control them, and will not send them away at Old Wife’s request. After condemning Minnie’s attraction to Dr. Meadows and reminiscing with her about old times, Old Wife finally makes a suggestion regarding Velma’s healing: “Loan her some of yo stuff, Min” (252). Old Wife, unlike the people in the prayer circle, can question Minnie and help her stop stalling.

Minnie eventually gets a message about Velma in the psychic realm, which encourages her to complete the healing. The message is “Pentagon [...] Lower left bicuspid” (277). When Old Wife doesn’t help decipher this, Minnie calls her a “stubborn, weird old smelly witch” (295), and Old Wife replies, “[T]hat’s how I choose to manifest myself this time” (295). After this bickering, Minnie realizes that Velma has been reborn, has reunited the sides of her split self, and no longer needs Minnie’s healing hands.

Ruby and Jan are part of Women for Action—an activist group—with Velma and others. They appear in moments from before the healing, such as during meetings with politicians at the Patterson suite, while staying in tents during actions, and while hanging out in Jan’s house. During Velma’s healing, Jan and Ruby are at the café. They are worried about Velma but are unaware of what is happening at the infirmary. They get caught under an awning when a sudden rainstorm starts, hug each other, and meet up with Velma’s other friends, who arrive on the bus. They are not dynamic but are somewhat round and represent larger groups of people.

At Velma’s request, Jan set up a meeting with a lawyer regarding her activism at the plant, but Velma didn’t show up due to her mental health crisis. Jan also invited Velma to their lunch at the café. Campbell, their waiter, is attracted to Jan. He notices her “[c]lose-cropped bush, weighty jewelry, wiry body, flowing clothes like robes” (212). Some students of Jan’s from the academy show up at the café, which is how Campbell finds out where she works. In one future moment that is envisioned, Jan’s name is Mrs. Janice Campbell. This indicates that they eventually date and get married.

While Jan reads tarot, Ruby is opposed to spiritual matters. Ruby argues for a material approach to organizing. She says, “Don’t anybody talk political anymore, talk Black anymore? [...] Look, the main thing I wish you’d get serious about is the next election” (236). Ruby wants Jan to run for office (while Jan hopes Doc Serge will run). These opposing viewpoints symbolize different approaches to Black activism, which often contend with each other.

Sophie is Velma’s godmother. She is also referred to as M’Dear and the “boardinghouse lady” (241). Velma’s memories of Sophie include her dragging oysters with Daddy Dolphy and participating in healings. However, Sophie leaves Velma’s healing. She “had been in attendance at every other major event in Velma Henry’s life” but stays in Doc Serge’s office during Minnie’s healing (11). While the other members of the healing group are shocked at her leaving the circle, Sophie thinks about training Velma to use her psychic gift when the healing is complete.

Palma is Velma’s sister and has an ex-husband, Sonny, and children. The meeting at the Patterson suite, which occurs in the past (before the healing), is where Palma meets Marcus Hampden, a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Palma thinks about how Velma’s mental health has negatively affected other people, and Palma’s dream about Velma causes the group of women to travel to Claybourne on the bus. When Palma gets off the bus, she meets up with Marcus, who has become her romantic partner. The evolution of their relationship can be compared with Jan ending up with Campbell. Marcus and Palma go to the park for the Spring Festival when the other women from the bus go to the café.

Obie (aka James) is Velma’s husband. He works at the academy, and it is hinted that he has been collecting guns in the academy for revolutionary action. Obie is concerned about Velma’s mental health but cheats on her, adding to her stress and trauma. During the healing, he is in the gym and the locker room. Eventually, someone in the academy tells him that Velma is in the infirmary. Obie delays working out and delays going to see Velma at the infirmary. He talks with his masseuse about his stress and wishes the fracturing in Black activism at the academy would resolve instead of the factions working against one another. Obie is somewhat round and shows dynamism at the novel’s end.

Campbell is a waiter at the café, a writer, and a game creator. His writer friends wait for him at a table in the café, discussing script ideas. In addition to flirting with Jan, Campbell thinks about his series of articles on nuclear energy and his game about the topic, Disposal. The regulars who play games at the café test out his game. These game players are only referred to by Campbell’s nicknames. During the storm, Campbell has a revelation about “Damballah [which is] the first law of thermodynamics and is the Biblical wisdom and is the law of time” (249). He later goes on to marry Jan, as shown in a moment from the future when she takes his name. He does not have much dynamism and is somewhat flat. 

Doc Serge is the main doctor at the infirmary. He is a retired pimp and considers the philosophy of it to be similar to being a doctor. He had:

long ago stumbled upon the prime principle as a player—that self-love produces the gods and the gods are genius. It took genius to run the Southwest Community Infirmary. So he made the rounds of his hospital the way he used to make the rounds of his houses to keep the tops spinning, reciting declarations of self-love (137).

Jan and Ruby consider him a community leader and a good candidate for political office. He embraces all forms of medicine, including Minnie’s spiritual healing.

The new, young doctor at the infirmary is Dr. Julius Meadows. He is from the country, noting, “That’s my country self talking” (122). He is lighter-skinned than most people in the novel. He feels like he stands out in some parts of Claybourne because of this and “[is] never more clear to himself than when Black people [examine] him this way, suspicious” (186). He leaves Velma’s healing and walks around the town. After wandering aimlessly, he ends up getting beers with guys who were initially suspicious of him but who accept him once they learn he works for Doc Serge. He also appears in the future moment with Jan and Sophie. This indicates how he eventually accepts things like spiritual healings, which initially make him uncomfortable.

Another group of characters is those who ride on the bus with Palma. This includes the driver, Fred Holt, who is mourning a friend and who has health problems. He is unhappy in his line of work and imagines an alternate future: “They might’ve been twenty-seven miles back in the moment of another time when Fred Holt did ram the bus through the railing and rode it into the marshes” (86). Once in Claybourne, he seeks assistance with his stomach issues at the infirmary and stumbles upon Velma’s healing. He is awed by it but is kindly directed to his own room for treatment by members of the healing group.

Other people on the bus include Velma’s sister, Palma, and her activist friends Cecile, Inez, Mai, Iris, Nilda, and Chezia. They debate fracturing in Black activism; some argue for astrology while others argue against it. They are all women of color but are from different backgrounds. Nilda, who is Indigenous, points out birds during the bus ride. Mai writes about her Japanese great-aunt in the café. Inez says she is “Chicana” (64). Iris, who is Puerto Rican and misses her community in New York, thinks about “how dragged out they all [are]” in the café (239). The women are in a state of delay like Obie and Minnie until the storm. The storm causes them to connect with Jan and Ruby. They represent the community that can form among all people of color, particularly women of color.