Jeanne DuVal preserves some of the memory of these deep African roots, which her French contemporaries consider as primitive, earthy, and exotic, an attitude underscored by quotations from Baudelaire’s poems. The remnants of African religion-ruthlessly suppressed by the slave owners-are kept alive in secret midnight meetings, where the spirits of the lwa take human bodies to serve as their steeds. The greatest tension exists in Auntie Mer’s story, where the seeds are planted that will eventually result in the revolution freeing Haiti’s slaves. The three women are linked by Ezili, one of the love goddesses (or the lwa, to use the name their worshippers call them) of the voodoo pantheon, who travels across time to possess each of the three.
Hopkinson ( Skin Folk, 2001, etc.) tells her story through the eyes of three women: Auntie Mer, a slave in French-colonial Haiti Jeanne DuVal (LeMer), the black mistress of Charles Baudelaire and Meritet, a Nubian prostitute in the Alexandria of a.d. Historical fantasy with a strong erotic element from the Locus award-winning author.
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