The Salt Roads

By: Nalo Hopkinson

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2003 Nalo Hopkinson (P)2018 Tantor

confusing

bounced around from story to story too much. I got really bored toward the end and couldn't wait for it to be over.

Didn't want it to end!

I finished the book a week ago and cannot get the voices of the characters out of my head! The narration is exquisite! And each character a jewel. It started off a bit difficult with the bouncing around between the different times and storylines told in 1st person, but once my brain figured out what the author was doing, I was hooked. And this is we're the narration was just so wonderful! Between the author's descriptions and the narrators different voices, listening was like floating away.

And I loved the ending! Just finished another book and hated the ending because everything was left undone. You could tell that it's a hopefull book one.

The Salt Roads is complete. I was left wanting to know more, to find out what happens next, but nothing was left undone. I was surprised at how quickly, effortlessly, and eloquently the author ended the book. How it all came together and the picture it left behind of these women, these African women...

I have no connection to thier story's, other than a belief that we all come from one place, and that all of our humanities are intertwined and same. The humanity displayed in this novel left my soul smiling. I think I'll go and listen to it again

Salt Roads

I was disappointed in this story. The narration was excellent. I love this particular narrator's beautiful voice and inflections, outstanding! But the story itself was difficult to follow and left me wondering what she was really trying to say. I often struggled to get through, and then I'd think okay I got it....but not really.

Not sure how to feel

I really struggled to finish this book. I wanted to love it but the story changes just wouldn't let me. I wanted more depth and more of each story. maybe if it would have been a book of short stories, I would have liked it more.

Raw truths

This book is incredible. I was sucked into the narrative of each of the women and each of the Gods that inhabited them. The truths of slavery and desire and repression and control and freedom were so salient that I couldn't resist the urge to "feel" it all.

Nalo illustrstes that salt, the taste of blood, sweat, tears, and the essence of a lover, is the essence of the sea that carried the slave ships, and also “the white man’s obeah” that bound the slaves to the new land. In reality, the salt roads were trade routes, essential connections between distant lands. In the same way, the gods travel the salt roads within the “storystream."

In the midst of turmoil, these powerful black women carved out a delicious pleasure in the midst of a horrible pain inflicted on them by some chosen masters and some forced- including god.

Although there was some abrupt juxtaposition, I feel this also lended to the value, complexity and intensity of the character lives in this story. As they were abruptly removed from their lives and their worlds changed without notice.

I could go on about this book, but rather I encourage you to listen for yourself.

Loved the narrators and story

Great overall story.. a little confusing but I think thats just because I was listening and not reading. I love when history merges with fiction

Love this book!

The narrator stole my heart from the first word. The story line maintained my interest the entire time.

such an incredible book

A must-read book with afro-futurist, historical and magical realist themes. If you enjoy this book, you will also enjoy her book The Midnight Robber Queen.

Quite a great read

This was a great read, I couldn’t even think of any dislikes about it after I finished. For being fiction the theological aspects were well researched. 2 thumbs up

This is a fantastic book!

Creatively written and fabulously narrated, this book is a journey of three native African women. Three very different lives with striking similarities. All three with their misfortunes and struggles are guided by the Gods to fulfill their life’s purpose. Flighty and somewhat whimsical, vivid and magical. This novel is a must read/ listen!