Maximum Shelf: OF WOMEN AND SALT (9/30/20)

Today’s Shelf Awareness Maximum Shelf pick is Gabriela Garcia’s sweeping, masterful debut, OF WOMEN AND SALT.

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, OF WOMEN AND SALT is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals—personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others—that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.

“OF WOMEN AND SALT marks the debut of a powerful literary voice, one that authentically amplifies and honors the stories and struggles of immigrants throughout generations.”–Shelf Awareness

SEE THE FULL SUMMARY, REVIEW, AND INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR ON SHELF-AWARENESS.COM. AND ENTER TO WIN AN ARC!