Salt Lakes had the potential to be something great – a great queer coming of age story, interwoven with a memoir about becoming a researcher of queer ecology or a great book about salt lakes interwoven with a memoir about becoming a researcher of queer ecology. That is not to say that it didn’t have many great aspects and that I don’t admire the research conducted by Tracey but that I think this book did too much. The day Tracey releases another book about Salt Lakes that is supported by more interviews with scientific researchers and Indigenous community members bringing various kinds of knowledge (rather than personal observations), I will already be in the bookstore waiting. 

We are introduced to the author’s life, upbringing, Russian studies major, her first serious relationship, interactions with mormons all before diving deep into any of the major salt lakes featured in this work. Important to later introduce her queer coming out, important to her development as a researcher, but not particularly important to me in my quest to learn about Salt Lakes. I found it to be somewhat redeeming that in her excursion into her days ranching Tracey traces settler colonial land development (and names it as such!) which has become a bit of a rarity in white authors’ accounts of their interactions with the land and present-day involvement of Indigenous communities. 

Tracey portraits the struggles for ecological protection with great care, giving agency to those fighting for the lakes and naming and shaming (finally someone does it) those who exploited these ecosystems for profit or were complicit in their destruction for power. But just when you think you are finally following and scratching that curious part of your brain we are back at her arranging her housing situation or marrying. Instead, I would have wished for either narrative strand to be followed through more closely, perhaps delving into a wider political or economic analysis, Indigenous struggle against settler colonialism, or legal battles such as communities invoking the Right to a Healthy Environment or exploring the potential of the Rights of Nature. 

I will be following Tracey’s future writing and would hope to see further research into Salt Lakes (perhaps in other locations, allowing for a more smooth merging between travel memoir and eco-journalism), and am positively optimistic I will be able to recommend future writing more wholeheartedly. 

Thank you to RB Media and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of the audiobook in return for an honest review.