A pro tip, before you read Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea: Don’t read the Wikipedia page for the Wilhelm Gustloff.
That is, unless you enjoy your fiction with a side helping of ice-cold dread.
The tragic fate of the German military transport ship forms the backdrop to Sepetys’ latest work of historical fiction, a portrait—at once sweeping and intimate—of a country on the losing side of a war. Salt to the Sea brings us inside the heads of four narrators, all haunted by different pasts, all carrying terrible secrets on the refugees’ long road out of Germany at the end of World War II.
Joana, a Lithuanian repatriate and nurse, heals others’ wounds while hiding her own, torn by guilt about and fear for the family she left behind. Emilia, a Polish girl, has no country and no family but the illegitimate child she carries. Florian, a German Prussian, is loyal to nothing and no one except his quest for vengeance. And Alfred, a pompous and naive Nazi soldier stationed aboard the Gustloff, hides in toilets and pines for a fantasy life in which he is important, desired, heroic.
The story unfolds as all four characters converge aboard the doomed transport ship. This is where the advice to stay away from Wikipedia comes in. Sepetys expertly interweaves the historical and the personal, bringing her characters to life with depth and detail. And by the time Joana, Emilia, Florian, and Alfred find themselves (literally) in the same boat, you’ll know them so intimately you’ll be frantically reading chapter after chapter to find out who makes it—knowing all too well what horror awaits anyone who doesn’t.
Like all the best historical fiction, Salt to the Sea roots readers in the past without textbook-y intrusiveness, giving us a holistic view of events through four different sets of eyes. It’s a testament to the strength of Sepetys’ characterization that even the pompous Nazi is accessible, even pathetic (if not necessarily sympathetic).
Add in an Easter egg for devoted fans—the Joana of this story is, indeed, the same Joana glimpsed in the author’s debut novel, Between Shades of Gray—and this is a story of adventure and endurance that demands to be read in one breathless sitting.
Salt to the Sea is on sale February 2.