Reviewed by Elizabeth Austin
There are books you read, and then there are books that read you: books that reach into your heart and extract experiences you thought were yours alone, holding them up to the light so you can see them clearly. Betsy Cornwell’s (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster; September 2025) is that kind of book.
Ring of Salt traces Cornwell’s journey from a bright-eyed 24-year-old arriving in Ireland to a woman navigating the treacherous waters of escaping from an abusive marriage, and eventually, improbably, renovating an old knitting factory as a single mom in the Irish countryside. It’s memoir as survival manual, as love letter, and as witness statement.
What strikes me most about Ring of Salt is Cornwell’s ability to paint abuse in all its maddening complexity. The book explores the insidious spectrum of control, manipulation, and terror that characterizes so many relationships. She captures the particular horror of wondering, always, if you’re being watched, of checking over your shoulder in the supermarket, of that split-second calculation every survivor knows — Is that his car? Is he following me? Did I just imagine it? Ring of Salt doesn’t sensationalize these moments; they play out on the page with devastating clarity, and in doing so, they validate an experience that so many women have lived through in isolation.
Reading Ring of Salt felt like talking to an old friend on the phone — the kind of conversation where you both start finishing each other’s sentences because you’ve been there, you know. When Cornwell describes sitting in a room at COPE, listening to other survivors tell their stories, I was right there with her. I’ve sat in rooms like that. I’ve heard those stories. I’ve been one of those stories. The recognition was almost physical.
Ring of Salt is a profound meditation on place and on how landscape can hold us. The descriptions of Ireland are luminous, loaded with such specificity and tenderness I felt I could reach out and touch the stone walls of the knitting factory, taste the salt air on the shore, feel the silvery wet sand of An Trá Mhór beneath my feet. When Cornwell describes the wild strawberries in the yard of the old knitting factory, I was on the ground with her, staining my fingers red. When she looks out over the lake, I’m looking too, bathed in that particular quality of Irish light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
This interweaving of place and survival is one of the book’s greatest achievements. Ireland isn’t just a backdrop for Cornwell’s story — it’s a character, a refuge, and a teacher. The land offers her something her marriage couldn’t: steadiness, beauty, and a sense of belonging. As she slowly transforms the knitting factory from ruin to home, we see her transforming too, reclaiming her life one strawberry, one stone, one decision at a time.
Cornwell is honest about what it takes to leave, and what comes after. She shows us the messy, non-linear reality of healing: setbacks, small victories, moments of doubt, the gradual accumulation of courage that comes with time. She acknowledges the people who helped — including the virtual Friday Tea group, borne out of her time at Smith College. I was reminded that while leaving takes tremendous individual strength, it also requires community.
What I appreciate most about Ring of Salt is its generosity. Cornwell has written a book that does the hard work of bearing witness without asking for pity. The book shows vulnerability without performing it. She offers us something precious: permission to believe that we, too, can break ourselves free.
Ring of Salt swept me away the way Ireland sweeps you away: completely, irrevocably, with a wild beauty that stayed with me long after I’d returned to solid ground.
Elizabeth Austin’s writing has appeared in Time, Harper’s Bazaar, McSweeney’s, Narratively and elsewhere. She is currently working on a memoir about being a bad cancer mom. She lives outside of Philly with her two children and their many pets. Find her at writingelizabeth.com and on Instagram: @writingelizabeth.
