Reviews with content warning for Death - Of Women and Salt

This has such an intriguing and poetic title! Plus, I'm always interested in small/short novels like this - it seems like there is not enough space to make an impact and yet often these are some of the most intense and insightful reads. (I'm thinking of Convenience Store Woman as another that, for all its brevity, made a major impression.) So yea, I wanted to check this one out.

Of Women and Salt follows an intergenerational line of women from two families. The first focuses, in the present day, on Jeanette, a Cuban-American living in Miami, struggling with addiction, who attempts to find herself by traveling to Cuba to learn more about her family's history. Jeanette's mother, Carmen, is dealing with coming to terms with her daughter's reality, while steadfastly leaving her past, the time she spent raised in Cuba, in the past. Carmen's mother, Dolores, remains in Cuba, having done her level best to protect her daughters from the turmoil around them (internal to their family and external in Cuba) as they were growing up. And even further back, we learn of the more historic beginnings of Jeanette's family, back in the late 1800s when Cuba fought for independence from Spain. Jeanette's family story is interwoven with that of Gloria and her daughter Ana, who is taken in by their neighbor, Jeanette, for a short time (on a whim), when Gloria is taken by ICE and Ana is dropped off at an empty home after school. From Cuba to Miami to Mexico to a detention center in Texas, this novel follows women, telling the stories of mothers and daughters over generations, as they survive and live.

Let me start with the writing. It was gorgeous. I listened to a short interview between the author and Roxane Gay at the end of the audiobook and it turns out that Garcia also writes poetry and you can absolutely tell. The writing has a rhythm to it that is both effortless and literary, and the combination gives a gorgeous flow. There were also a few standout moments for me, like the imagery of paralleled birth and death by gunfire (in defense of freedom/liberty), that were particularly searing. The title itself, as I mentioned, is part of what pulled me to this book to begin with, and it delivers on that promise. The ways that the salt of women – sweat, tears, oceans, attitudes – are portrayed throughout, both literally and metaphorically, is poignant. I will say that there were a times where the writing (the POV, the style, a non-linear temporal progression) changed from chapter to chapter, as there were a variety of voices narrating this story. It sometimes made the novel feel more like a connection of interconnected short stories that a single compiled story, which could be off-putting. I think in the end, the rest of what I loved made up for that bit of separation/jumpiness.

Topically, this was a very impactful read, tackling the complexities of intergenerational trauma, domestic abuse, colonialism, addiction, immigration and border-crossing and ICE/deportation. And in such a short work, I was deeply impressed with the nuance with which each was handled. There was depth to each character’s experience that had me fully connected to each, even though our time spent with each was so short. It really helped, I think, that each character’s time in focus give insight to their life, as well as providing insight for a few of the other as well. Lovely dimension. And the language used to describe some of these concepts, questions like “does loss unspoken become an inherited trait?” and observations like “even the best mothers in the world, can’t always save their daughters” and “there is no ‘minor’ in abuse,” no spectrum…it was all just truly on point.

Overall, the way Garcia portrays the cycle of women (and motherhood roles, in particular) is incredibly discerning. She pinpoints how they fail each other and how they make up for it elsewhere. How sometimes even that isn’t enough and, in the end, forgiveness and reuniting don’t happen because the gulf is too big. How even though (each and every time) there is a shared goal of something better/more, the difference in the definitions and abilities to achieve it are different enough to create an insurmountable gulf. It hits in the feels in so many ways, universal in emotion despite the specificity of the individual lives. A lovely short read that definitely embodies the particular power and sorrow of women.

"I want to know who I am, so I need to know who you've been."

“If safe were a place, it would look nothing like any of the options, and I want to scream but I swallow, I want to claw but I smile, because I need to seem good.”

“Motherhood: question mark, a constant calculation of what-if.”

“What kind of fear is credible? There are so many kinds of fear.”

“...there are no real rules that govern why some are born in turmoil and others never know a single day in which the next seems an ill-considered bet. It's all lottery, Ana, all chance. It's the flick of a coin, and we are born.”

“Why? Why dwell, why talk, what good would it do? She had mastered a life without unearthing her own horror stories [...] the past haunted only if you let it.”

“As if anything were about beauty. Or want.”

“…how will I survive, and then the day after that, how will I survive, and when will I stop feeling exhausted from all the surviving?”

“For so long, she'd had a different story about her own trajectory. She marveled at the way memory became static history, this thing so easily manipulated and shaped by her own desires.”

“Women? Certain women? We are more than we think we are. There was always more.”

Content Warnings

leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

cassielaj's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book does so much in 200 pages, and it almost shouldn’t work, but it does. In almost a vignette style, it explores mother-daughter relationships across time and borders. It is full of sorrow, resilience, power, loss, and love.

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amberreadseverything's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

Content Warnings

wordsofclover's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

kelly_e's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Title: Of Women and Salt
Author: Gabriela Garcia
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: 4.25
Pub Date: March 30 2021

T H R E E • W O R D S

Poetic • Heartbreaking • Powerful

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Jeanette is battling the grips of addiction, and is endlessly determined to learn more about her family's history. When on a whim Jeanette takes in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE, her mother, Carmen, is resistant. Carmen continues to wrestle with the trauma of displacement, her complicated relationship with her own mother, and raising a wayward daughter. In a quest to understand, Jeanette travels to Cuba to visit her grandmother and discovers a host of secrets from the past.

Spanning 19th century cigar factories to modern detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayal that have shaped the lives of these women.

💭 T H O U G H T S

In 2021 I decided to make my way through the GMA book club selections. Of Women and Salt was one I knew I wanted to prioritize. Maybe I was drawn to the historical aspect and/or the beautiful cover, but I knew little more than that going in. And I definitely didn't know it was so short.

What immediately struck me was Gabriela Garcia's spellbinding language. This novel is beautifully written, with so much emotion captured in the words. The non-linear structure, seeming more like a collection of short stories, was different but worked perfectly in this narrative even though it took me awhile to figure out who was who (thank goodness for the family trees at the beginning). Featuring three generation of Cuban/Cuban-American women, each fully fleshed out and equally flawed, and exploring themes of motherhood, intergenerational trauma, addiction, abuse, immigration and oppression.

I enjoyed this generational saga, and the historical interconnectedness of the characters is something I gravitate towards in books. I appreciated how the ending came full circle in a satisfying way.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• literary fiction lovers
• readers looking for an immigration story
• fans of generational sagas

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"I believe family is whoever we point to. I did not just have you. You did not simply happen to me. I chose. I saw the possibilities and I chose and I would not judge the woman who chooses differently. I decided I would be your mother and family and you would be of me."

"We are more than we think we are. There was always more."

Content Warnings

bookish_baker_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

cora_hreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

From the start, I fell in love with Of Women and Salt. I loved the different timelines and how each character had a theme that eventually carried through to Ana's chapter at the end. I felt engulfed by the prose and descriptions that Garcia provided. Needless to say, Of Women and Salt is a book I'd recommend to the masses.

When I picked up this book and read the blurb on the back, I thought it'd be a deep slice-of-life story collection, doting on Latinx experiences in and outside of the US. Initially, my expectations were just to be informed of what I didn't know or understand about Latinx people, families, etc. I got so much more than that. What I got from Of Women and Salt was a deep, cutthroat dive into how Cuban and Salvadoran women tried to get to the best they could every day.

A worker

losing her husband

in mid/late 1800s Cuba, and starting the family line of women who'd work until their bones were brittle to achieve what they needed to survive.
A housewife during the 1950s Cuban revolution, going through any means necessary

(including murder)

to get her children out of the war-ridden home.
A distressed mother and her drug-addicted/drug-recovering daughter, trying to salvage their relationship that was torn in the early 2000s.

All of these stories, these excerpts of lives, struck me in a way that truly made me feel. I was happy when Marìa was able to get out of the factory and start anew; discomfort was written across my face when Jeanette recounted her teenage sex-driven years and the highs and lows of her drug addictions, as well as her toxic relationship. I felt these different ways because of how Garcia varied her prose for each woman. Jeanette was heartfelt but inconsistent, like a constant train of desparate thought was running in her mind. Carmen seemed to be polished on the outisde, but little details crept out of her as you learned more about her. Ana was flat -- she had to steel herself up just to survive. I commend the prose to an incomprehensible extent.

The descriptions of the setting(s) were similar. As the characters moved about, you felt not only the prescence of the land, but also how it felt to each character. I could imagine the dingy, musty smell of the small Cuban town when Maydelis' car broke down -- I imagined bright, false-dream neon lights shining on a young Jeanette after ditching her hook-up. This book was so incredibly vivid; ultimately, it added to the overall appeal in an incredible way.

My only critique is the bluntness of Jeanette's ending -- which I think was intentional. The reader is alluded to it in her final chapter, but it's open ended at the actual last chapter.

We know what led to Jeanette's death, but why? What caused the relapse?

. I like that it leads me off to question what could've/might've been, like there's no firm ending as to why things happen -- just like in real life.

Overall, Of Women and Salt gets a 4.75/5 stars for its incredible characters, vivid descriptions, and attention to detail for the readers to consider even after reading.

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