The Salt Roads

July 21, 2003
Whirling with witchcraft and sensuality, this latest novel by Hopkinson (Skin Folk; Midnight Robber) is a globe-spanning, time-traveling spiritual odyssey. When three Caribbean slave women, led by dignified doctress Mer, assemble to bury a stillborn baby on the island of Saint Domingue (just before it is renamed Haiti in 1804), Ezili, the Afro-Caribbean goddess of love and sex, is called up by their prayers and lamentations. Drawing from the deceased infant's "unused vitality," Ezili inhabits the bodies of a number of women who, despite their remoteness from each other in time and space, are bound to each other by salt—be it the salt of tears or the salt that baptized slaves into an alien religion. The goddess's most frequent vehicle is Jeanne Duval, a 19th-century mulatto French entertainer who has a long-running affair with bohemian poet Charles Baudelaire. There is also fourth-century Nubian prostitute Meritet, who leaves a house of ill repute to follow a horde of sailors, but finds religion and a call to sainthood. Meanwhile, the seed of revolution is planted in Saint Domingue as the slaves hatch a plan to bring down their white masters. Ezili yearns to break free from Jeanne's body to act elsewhere, but can do so only when Jeanne, now infected with syphilis, is deep in dreams. Fearing that she will disappear when death finally calls Jeanne, Ezili is drawn into the body of Mer at a cataclysmic moment and is just as quickly tossed back into other narratives. Though occasionally overwrought, the novel has a genuine vitality and generosity. Epic and frenetic, it traces the physical and spiritual ties that bind its characters to each other and to the earth. (Nov. 12)Forecast:Hopkinson's sci-fi and fantasy following should give this novel crossover appeal, and African-American markets are a good bet, too. 10-city author tour.

July 1, 2003
After debuting in 1998 with Brown Girl in the Ring (John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer), Hopkinson was a finalist for a passel of sf awards for Midnight Robber (2000). Here, three Caribbean slave women bring into being a deity who travels through time in various guises. With a ten-city author tour.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2003
Jamaica-born Hopkinson has carved out a fertile niche in the sf and fantasy realm, writing spicy and clever tales involving Caribbean spirituality. She now infiltrates mainstream fiction with an earthy, fanciful, not altogether successful historical novel about three women whose lives are affected by a fledging female deity. Hopkinson's imaging of Ezili, the Afro-Caribbean goddess of sexual desire and love, is at once mystical and funny as the goddess struggles to figure out the extent of her powers and how to use them. Ezili first finds herself inhabiting a beautiful brown-skinned woman living in Paris with her lover, the poet Charles Baudelaire. Although Jeanne (based on a true-life figure) is compelling, Baudelaire is painfully cartoonish. Then there's Meritet, an enslaved Nubian prostitute who travels to Jerusalem, where she miraculously transforms herself into St. Mary of Egypt. And, finally, there's Mer, Hopkinson's strongest character, an enslaved lesbian healer involved in Haiti's slave revolution. Like Erica Jong, Hopkinson uses sex to entice readers into contemplating the long history of misogyny, specifically women's suffering during the African diaspora.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2003
This blend of historical fiction, fantasy, and folklore intertwines the lives of three women of African descent: Mer, a slave on a Caribbean sugar plantation; Jeanne Duval, mistress of poet Charles Baudelaire; and Meritet, a prostitute who becomes St. Mary of Egypt. These women share a connection to Ezili (the Afro-Caribbean goddess of love and sex), who inhabits their minds and, whenever possible, influences their decisions. None of the women has a simple life, but the share of violence, bitterness, and sadness in each is balanced by joyful sensuality. Nor are there any tidy endings to their stories; their lives, and deaths, are as rich and complicated as those of real people. The mortal women are compellingly portrayed with telling historical details and distinct voices. Ezili remains indistinct, as befits a goddess, and Hopkinson sometimes abandons straight narrative for poetry when Ezili speaks. Though the goddess connects the three women together, the women's tales themselves are much more interesting. Hopkinson has won several awards for her imaginative sf (Brown Girl in a Ring; Midnight Robber), which incorporates Afro-Caribbean mythology and folktales. Her latest book is a move out of that genre into magical realism. Recommended for most fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/03; see "Must-Reads for Fall," p. 36.-Ed.]-Devon Thomas, Hass MS&L, Ann Arbor, MI

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.