The Book of Salt is Vietnamese-American author Monique Truong's first novel; it presents a narrative through the eyes of Bình, a Vietnamese cook. His story centers in Paris in his life as the cook in the home of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and is supplemented by his memories of his childhood in French-colonial Vietnam. This book is structured as a stream of consciousness narrative, in which Bình's present circumstances are mixed with episodes from his past, showing bits and pieces of people and events who have the right to live during the 1612 in New York City