The Salt Roads

This is a rare book. I've never heard anything but praise for Nalo Hopkinson, and now it's easy to see why. This book is a trilogy of stories about women of color enslaved, both literally and figuratively, by the worlds around them. The characters are united by the presence of a goddess who is trapped within and between them. If that isn't a perfect image for the struggles faced by women of color today, I'm not sure what is. The stories take place in three time periods and places: Alexandria era Egypt, a Haitian slave plantation just before the slave revolt, and turn of the century Paris. It's hard for me to pick one story over the others as a favorite because all three are intriguing and unique. Jeanne, the Parisian dancing girl, is the one that actually made me burst into tears at one point, so I would say that's the one I connected with most strongly.

It is not a typical fantasy novel, maybe closer to magic realism in tone and form. Chapters are fluid in length and style, pieces of poetry are interwoven into the narrative, and the narrator shifts between humans and goddess within each chapter. Personally, I find the uniqueness and elegance makes it well-worth the challenge of reading. It is occasionally very graphic, sometimes a bit too graphic for me, but that graphicness is never gratuitous. We are living these women's lives as they lived them, exactly. As long as that doesn't drive you away from a story, I'd say The Salt Roads is a necessary book to take up.