From the Spring 2018 issue of UNCG Research Magazine
Imagine a world in the not-too-distant future where the government assigns where you live. Your social media footprint impacts your financial stature, and an Asheville Cracker Barrel restaurant exists as a museum for 21st century ephemera.
Oh, and there’s an infestation of killer ticks in the Appalachian Mountains.
Welcome to “The Salt Line,” the latest novel by Holly Goddard Jones. The associate professor of creative writing at UNC Greensboro blends elements of horror, dystopia, and literary fiction in a book that has received positive reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and the L.A. Times. While previous works — the 2009 short story collection “Girl Trouble” and her 2014 debut novel “The Next Time You See Me” — are realistic tales of blue collar life in rural Kentucky, Jones’ second novel takes a futuristic bent.
“The Salt Line” imagines a dystopian America ensconced behind a tick-repellent scorched earth barrier. The nation holds tight moral and geographical control over its citizens and has been redistricted into livable zones. Jones, whose previous works have received acclaim in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, People, O Magazine, and more, calls this work “symbolic speculation” rather than pure science fiction. “I’m not forecasting that ticks will destroy the world; I’m using that scenario to write a future that comments on the present,” she says. “It was scarier if the future felt very much like our present, with some tweaks of degree.”
Composite image by Mike Dickens
