The stories of Mer and Duval are compelling, the characters richly drawn against a backdrop historically accurate but crafted with all the tools of good fiction. The stories of these three women interlock as Ezili rides the salt roads of water, blood, and tears across time and among their consciousnesses.ĭespite this broad series of canvases, Hopkinson takes care to maintain an intimate and human scope.
Ezili also inhabits Jeanne Duval, the black former actress who became mistress of poet Charles Baudelaire, and Meritet, a young prostitute in 300 AD who undertakes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Mer is surrounded by a rising chorus of dissent and rebellion among the slaves, precursor to the rebellion that created Haiti. The main character inhabited by Ezili is Mer, a healer on a plantation on Saint Domingue and one of the slave women whose keening awoke the goddess. Ezili has no self-awareness, no memories and experiences, and shapes the world by inhabiting three different women. Hopkinson, who is widely respected for her fantasy writing, casts as her main character Ezili, an Afro-Caribbean goddess who is awoken by the mourning of three slave women following a stillbirth. The Salt Roads, the new novel from Toronto writer Nalo Hopkinson, is a sprawling, ambitious exploration of mythology and history, race and gender.
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