Bambara backs readers [of The Salt Eaters] into the eye of a hurricane and then releases them, along with her troubled protagonist, as the contaminated clouds burst. The ominous downpour is the plot's core event and metaphor; the book is heavy on atmosphere and thin on action. But that bias seems appropriate to the characters' pillar-of-salt paralysis in which memory of past violence numbs the present and urges fear of the future.

Details are microcosmic: The souring of a marriage is reflected in a table setting, and feminism of the Sixties is wryly summed up in the scratchiness of rally flyers doubling as sanitary napkins. Words take on a driving beat, and push home with humor and the message: "Doan letcha mouf gitcha in what ya backbone caint stand."

This first novel has spine. Its creator displays tragicomic skills as versatile and subtle as the difference between a...