The Book of Salt

Binh goes home with men, some of whom he meets at Stein’s home—none is appealing from a relationship point of view, and all are just objects of lust. Binh instead longs for his scholar-prince, the hero of the stories his mother would tell him as they cooked together. He shares his plans for the meal he will prepare for Lattimore’s dinner party, sharing his own recipes, along with those of his brother and his mother, in sensuous detail.

Binh’s mother called him her little scholar-prince when he was about 11. This confused him, as he had always imagined himself in place of the young girl in the story, awaiting his own scholar-prince.

The narrative skips ahead to the morning after Lattimore’s “dinner party.” No one came—it was just a rendezvous for the two men. When Binh dresses to go home, he notices a bulge in his shirt pocket and assumes it is money. He then hears his father’s voice calling him a whore. He rushes back to Stein and Toklas’s, worried about his late return.