The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Cassandra Khaw is a new to me author this year. I chose to listen to the unabridged audio version of The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw, which is wonderfully narrated by Susan Dalian. The Salt Grows Heavy is a very dark and poetic fever dream that takes the familiar framework of The Little Mermaid and thoroughly dismantles it with razor-sharp teeth, visceral body horror, and deep thematic weight.

Picking up where traditional fairy tales end, this novella follows a mute, predatory mermaid narrator after the fall of the prince’s kingdom—a destruction wrought by her own feral, sharp-toothed daughters. Fleeing the ashes of her forced marriage, she traverses a bleak landscape alongside a gentle, non-binary plague doctor. When the duo stumbles upon a sinister village governed by three immortal "Saints" who harvest the blood and flesh of children for youth, their survival demands an embrace of their absolute most monstrous selves.

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw is a layered, subversive narrative: What makes The Salt Grows Heavy so intriguing is its rich, multi-layered subversion of classic tropes.

Deconstructing the Patriarchy: This is an unapologetic reclamation of body and voice. The mermaid narrator refuses the human ideals of gentleness or submissiveness, replacing forced motherhood and silenced compliance with primal, defensive rage.

Queer Intimacy Beyond the Flesh: The core bond between the mermaid and the plague doctor is the emotional heart of the story. Both are survivors of profound physical violation—the mermaid caged and altered by a prince, the doctor dissected and reassembled with a clockwork-like bezoar core. Their romance is deeply queer, non-heteronormative, and tender, grounded in seeing and accepting each other’s full, scarred "otherness" without demanding reform or conformity.

Monstrosity as Autonomy: Rather than treating their monstrous nature as a curse to be cured, the climax—where the mermaid escapes the pyre, annihilates the Saints, and lovingly regenerates the doctor’s body around their glowing bezoar—frames monstrosity as the ultimate instrument of liberation and survival.

The Audio Experience & Final Verdict

If you plan to dive into this novella, I highly recommend the audiobook format. Khaw’s prose is exceptionally dense, elevated, and poetic—packed with lush, gory vocabulary that can easily blend together on the printed page. The narrator does a stellar job grounding the elevated language, bringing a hypnotic rhythm and emotional clarity to the mermaid's internal monologue.

While the surreal pacing and intense body horror make it a distinctly strange, acquired taste, its razor-sharp feminist commentary and gentle queer love story make it a memorable read.

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw is a fascinating, darkly beautiful, and thoroughly bizarre listen! I am giving The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw a rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!