Saltblood

"Yes, it’s about and written from the point of view of Mary Read, and involves her relationship and pirating with Anne Bonny. It tells the story of Mary’s life, which is amazing. It’s almost like she lives several lives, and each of her lives is an adventure. Mary is born in Plymouth, and her mother makes her pretend to be a boy from a very young age. She poses as her slightly older half-brother who died, so they can continue to receive money from the father’s family. So she starts living as a boy because that’s what her mother asks her to do, but then she continues. She leaves home as a young teenager and goes and works as a footman. Then she joins the Navy, again as a boy. Then she joins the army and fights on the battlegrounds of Flanders, at which point she falls in love, leaves the army and marries a man. Then, eventually, she finds her way back to the sea. She meets Anne Bonny, and they are pirates in the Caribbean together. The yearning this character has for the sea is a theme throughout the book. I haven’t read a true account of Mary Read’s life, but there’s quite a lot of historical fact in Saltblood and I suspect it is accurate. One of the things I found incredibly skillful about this novel is that the author makes a real person’s life into a page-turning story. That’s difficult to do. As judges, we all loved Mary Read. One of the judges described her as “the badass central character.” There’s also a nuanced handling of gender and queerness. We loved the many, vividly described ways of being captivated by the sea. The sea is a strong presence throughout the book. Again, there’s external adventure, but almost more compelling are the transformations the character goes through herself. That absolutely blew me away. And I found it so interesting that when she left the army and got married to another soldier, their relationship changed. They’d been so close and enjoyed this companionship and burgeoning love. The roles they then found themselves in as husband and wife totally destroyed that, it seemed to me—certainly they did for her."