The English Revolution is under way. The world is turned upside down. The nation, seething with religious and political discontent, has erupted into violence and terror - into civil war.
Jacob Cullen has that same violence within him. Working with his brothers in a rich and dissolute household, he finds that even his love for Caro is of no help against the bouts of jealousy and rage which terrify others. Inevitably, his lack of self-knowledge leads to a loss of control - with fatal consequences.
Fleeing to the New Model Army, he find himself in a company with thinkers as well as fighters and fugitives such as himself. People are hungry for change, and change is coming at last. Some of the soldiers, intoxicated by dreams of freedom, have little idea how to live in the reality. But others, like Jacob's new comrade Ferris, are wily enough to build on such dreams and to make use of men like Jacob. And so begins a battle between the two of them, a struggle which cannot be contained by army life or by the London to which they flee. What is at stake for each is power over the other. As England is torn apart by war, Jacob's feelings intensify until they must find an outlet.
'As Meat Loves Salt' is a darkly erotic tale of passion and obsession, order and chaos. It is also a gripping portrait of mid-seventeenth-century England and of the grim experience of civil war. Above all, it is a shattering portrait of a maddened man.
