The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

When Raynor and husband Moth lose their home and business, they strike out along England’s 630-mile South West Coast Path with nothing but a tent, poor health, and an eye for nature.

Along the way they meet a soothsayer, drink from streams, bathe with gulls, hitchhike with soldiers, and run out of food, water, money, and warm weather.

It’s a landscape of literary heroes: Daphne du Maurier, Winston Graham, JM Falkner, Thomas Hardy... They read Beowulf and Robinson Crusoe, and crisscross paths with Simon Armitage. I was reminded of Footnotes by Peter Fiennes - a fusion of literary biography, travel and nature-writing.

Raynor’s story is deeply moving, and her voice frank, winsome, and occasionally gauche. Within very few pages I was reading with my heart in my mouth. The encounter with the forest-dwelling workers who have simply been “priced out” of country property is particularly interesting - and provides an affecting alternative to the stereotypical face of homelessness.

(For further depictions of homelessness, try The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (memoir; excellent) and William Trevor’s disquieting novel Felicia’s Journey.)

Raynor Winn leaves The Salt Path with a cliffhanger - which is continued in her sequel The Wild Silence published in 2020.