In beautiful prose, Nalo Hopkinson's The Salt Roads tells how Ezili, the African goddess of love, becomes entangled in the lives of three women. Grief-powered prayers draw Ezili into the physical world, where she finds herself trapped by her lost memories and by the spiritual effects of the widespread evil of slavery. Her consciousness alternates among the bodies/minds of several women throughout time, but she resides mostly in three women: Mer, an Afro-Caribbean slave woman/midwife; Jeanne Duval, Afro-French lover of decadent Paris poet Charles Baudelaire; and Meritet, the Greek-Nubian slave/prostitute known to history as St. Mary of Egypt.

Ezili becomes entangled with Mer because the midwife's prayers helped draw her into the mortal world. The novel presents a reasonable, though undeveloped, connection between Meritet/St. Mary, the Virgin Mary, and the goddesses of Africa. However, it's not clear why Ezili becomes entangled with Jeanne Duval. This is because The Salt Roads is sketchy, its three storylines compressed; the novel reads more like three novellas incompletely braided. This is a shame, because each mortal character's life could have made a fine, full, fascinating novel by itself.

John W. Campbell Award winner Nalo Hopkinson's first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel, the New York Times Notable Book Midnight Robber, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and James Tiptree Jr. Awards. The Salt Roads is her third novel. --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
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.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
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. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Jeanne Duval, the ginger-colored entertainer, is descended from African slaves and white sailors. It is twilight, and she argues with her lover Charles Baudelaire in his Paris apartment. Ginger is hot in its roots with a beautiful, lush red flower above. And ginger has a bite as she does..." "Mer, plantation slave and doctor, has healing hands though her spirit is sickened. She both hungers for and dreads liberation, and longs for the gods to take her home. My wishes can't fly freely. They're rooted to the ground like me, who eats salt." "Thais, a beauty from Alexandria, was sold into slavery and prostitution as a girl. Impelled to seek a glorious revelation, she will travel the long hot roads to Jerusalem. She is dark-skinned, this beauty, and ruddy like copper. No salt-pucker of bitterness in her." "Ezili. Born from hope vibrant and hope destroyed. Born of bitter experience. Born of wishing for better. Born." Across centuries and civilizations, award-winning writer Nalo Hopkinson fearlessly explores the relationships women have with their lovers, with each other, with their people, and with the divine. As Jeanne struggles with the volatile Baudelaire, as Mer's dedication is tested by revolution, as Thais crosses paths with the eternal, the author interweaves their experiences and braids vivid acts of brutality with passionate unions of spirit and flesh. The result is a brilliantly imagined tale of sexuality, freedom, and transcendence from one of today's most original authors - a narrative poured forth from deep within the heart and soul.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

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. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

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 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews