The Salt Roads

Written by Nalo Hopkinson

Narrated by Bahni Turpin

In 1804, shortly before the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue is renamed Haiti, a group of women gather to bury a stillborn baby. Led by a lesbian healer and midwife named Mer, the women's lamentations inadvertently release the dead infant's "unused vitality" to draw Ezili—the Afro-Caribbean goddess of sexual desire and love—into the physical world.



As Ezili explores her newfound powers, she travels across time and space to inhabit the midwife's body—as well as those of Jeanne, a mixed-race dancer and the mistress of Charles Baudelaire living in 1880s Paris, and Meritet, an enslaved Greek-Nubian prostitute in ancient Alexandria.



Bound together by Ezili and "the salt road" of their sweat, blood, and tears, the three women struggle against a hostile world, unaware of the goddess's presence in their lives. Despite her magic, Mer suffers as a slave on a sugar plantation until Ezili plants the seeds of uprising in her mind. Jeanne slowly succumbs to the ravages of age and syphilis when her lover is unable to escape his mother's control. And Meritet, inspired by Ezili, flees her enslavement and makes a pilgrimage to Egypt, where she becomes known as Saint Mary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781541449060

Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and has lived in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada. The daughter of a poet/playwright and a library technician, she has won numerous awards including the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, and Canada's Sunburst Award for literature of the fantastic. Her award-winning short fiction collection Skin Folk was selected for the 2002 New York Times Summer Reading List and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year. Hopkinson is also the author of The New Moon's Arms, The Salt Roads, Midnight Robber, and Brown Girl in the Ring. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and splits her time between California, USA, and Toronto, Canada.

Reviews for The Salt Roads

[Artista Hairston · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as captivating as I would hope. Maybe I lost interest due to the audio

[tay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hard to follow at first. A lot of historical context is not required, but definitely helps. Still a little confused about a lot of parts. Will definitely re-read.

[Stacey Franklin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is rich with Haitian history and African culture. I loved how the women lives connected across time and came full circle at the end.

[Amy McDougal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Going in blind... after starting with the ebook, and feeling like this might not be for me, I switched to this audio and found the narrator to my liking! I liked the mix of story and poetry.

[Finola · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderfully unusual story, so full of strength in adversity and beauty of the spirit

[Dee-tje · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a descendant of contract workers from India to South America, this was very interesting. I recognised some of the words and the kissing teeth sound. My family still does that! I found it hard to follow till chapter 60 or so. And I can do without half of the sex scenes. But all and all, I was captivated by the story and fate of these women. And sometimes saddened of what my ancestors had to endure…

[Chelsea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the most amazing books I’ve ever read. Woven realities. It’s like the cloud atlas combined with the book of the dead combined with historical fictions of courageous black women. Woooowwwww.

[Edens Brunache · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stunning words of poetry intertwined with many lives. D W

[Nicole Hagood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully written magical journey that will take the reader into the lives of powerful women that exist across time and culture.

[Jenna Vaughn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the rhythm of the story. I do think it might have been one to read rather than listen to so that you got a better view of the transitions.

[tiff g · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is soooo good! And I’m not sure who read it but she is amazing!!! Absolutely amazing!! I have listened to my share of audio books and even aside from the EXQUISITE story itself- I’m tremendously impressed with this reading. I can’t say enough! Nalo has a new fan! Sak pase!

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Saint Domingue prior to the revolution, a woman named Mer is a slave and doing her best as a healer for the people there, including her lover Tipingee, and Georgine who comes to her when she is pregnant. Georgine's baby is stillborn, but in the women's mourning for her an aspect of Ezili is born. Ezili has the ability to join her consciousness with other women, including Jeanne Duval, the mistress of Charles Baudelaire in 1840s Paris, and Thais, an enslaved Greek-Nubian prostitute in 300s Alexandria.

I enjoyed the writing and the characters, but didn't entirely get what Hopkinson was doing bringing these three narratives together. Any of them could have been expanded into a strong story of its own. Ezili - and I had to look this up while reading - is a pantheon of Vodou goddesses that show up in different aspects, so the connection to Haiti (Saint Domingue still in Mer's story) and salt (Jeanne's nickname is Lemer and Thais is also Meritet, and both the salt of the sea and the connection to the Virgin Mary come in to play) is played with throughout. Each of the stories are heartbreaking but also about the resilience and love of the three women. There's a fair amount of violence as you might expect from a book that deals with slavery, and also sex - several characters are queer, some of the sex is, well, sexy and some of it very much is not, but desire is not shied away from here. It had some interesting qualities, but even at the end I'm not entirely sure where the story was going.

[tldegray-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was my first exposure to Nalo Hopkinson and it won't be my last. Told from four different POVs, in different times and different places, this book is seamless, the transitions flowing like the water Hopkinson writes about. Their narratives twine about each other, braiding each woman's experiences into the single story of a goddess.

It's about women and their goddesses. It's about slavery, colonialism, and racism. It's about love and hate and fear and hope. And it is astounding. (Provided by publisher)

[altheaann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Undoubtedly, a tour-de-force of magical realism.

Here, Hopkinson does not merely aim to tell a story. She aims to create a collage illuminating the experiences of black women throughout history.

The first, and perhaps the primary character introduced is Mer, a slave in Haiti, shortly before the revolution. She faces hard decisions when faced with choices about whether to seek her own freedom or to stay and try to help the other slaves (she's the closest thing to a doctor they have). Love and loyalty are complex things to negotiate, for her, and her actions are not always appreciated or understood by those around her.

The narrative also closely focuses on an actual historical character: Jeanne Duval, known as the mistress of Charles Baudelaire. As a mixed-race woman in 19th-century Paris, in a relationship with a wealthy white man, she also has a minefield to negotiate through life.

The third, (and strangely much smaller) story here is that of Thais, an Ethiopian prostitute in Egypt. In search of a better life (and adventure) she and her best friend embark on a journey to Greece. Her fate is to be remembered by history as Saint Mary of Egypt.

There are many parallels between the lives of these three women, even separated as they are by time, geography and circumstance. Each is caught on a low rung of the social hierarchy due to circumstances beyond her control. Each ends up in a land far from that of her birth. And each must make choices about who to love and who to cleave to.

Tying together these three disparate stories is the 'magical' aspect of the novel: the African goddess Lasirén or Ezili, a goddess of water and love, a rival to the spirit of war. The spirit observes, possesses, influences the turn of events.

I've read a few things by Hopkinson, and I would say this is her most notable work.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read the new ebook edition of this book. As always, my opinions are my own.

[zeborah · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Three historically dispersed narratives bound together by a fourth (a goddess's) point of view and a single mood-and-theme: four kinds of captivity and even more ways to freedom.

[allyshaw_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this book vivid and moving. And incredibly ambitious meditation about Old Gods, desire and diaspora. Spiritual survival. Profound stuff.