Of Salt And Women by Gabriela Garcia

This book takes the reader through five generations and four countries, with an up front diagrams of two matrilineal family trees; these family trees feature the first names of women. Abusive men damaged these trees and deadened their branches, but matriarchs are the root of these stories, if not the only players. It all starts back to 1866 in Camagüey, Cuba, where María Isabel becomes the first woman in her cane-cutting line to graduate to rolling cigars and, soon thereafter, to read. Subjected to harassment, lesser wages and unwanted advances in a shadowy cigar factory, she becomes enraptured by books read aloud to the workers by a lector who falls in love with her. Their union, forged during a Cuban rebellion against Spanish colonial rule and slavery, ends with blood that births a new future. Liberation is not linear — not for countries nor for women. Though María Isabel wanted to endure, not all freedoms are made possible by resilience. This is the author's first book, and it is a promising start.