Of Women and Salt

To the extent that the novel has a protagonist, it is Jeanette. Four of the twelve chapters are from her perspective (some in first-person, some not), and several more involve her indirectly (for example, when she visits with Maydelis and attends Carmen’s dinner party). However, the novel is about much more than just Jeanette’s story arc, and Jeanette doesn’t have a clear story. Rather, she experiences a series of hardships and, ultimately, a tragedy, but much of her conflict takes place outside the novel’s scope.

Jeanette is the Cuban American daughter of Carmen, a descendant of the first character the novel introduces, María Isabel. In many ways, Jeanette is Carmen’s opposite: Whereas Carmen is reserved and very put-together, Jeanette exhibits wild, anti-authoritarian tendencies from a young age—tendencies that eventually lead to substance abuse. However, these tendencies largely result from the hardship and abuse she experiences at the hands of the men in her life—first her father and later her boyfriend, Mario. Therefore, Jeanette’s road is both tragic and complicated. Her perspective differs so much from her mother’s that she doesn’t have her mother to lean on, and by the time her mother better understands Jeanette, the tension between them is unresolvable.