The Braid
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3.8 • 9 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Smita, Giulia, Sarah: three lives, three continents, three women with nothing in common, but nevertheless bound by a rare expression of courage . . . like three strands in a braid. Through the story of one woman’s hair, three women’s destinies are drawn together.
India. Smita is an untouchable, married to a ‘rat hunter’, her job to clean with her bare hands the village latrines, just like her mother before her. Her dream is to see her daughter escape this same fate, and learn to read. When this hope is shattered, she decides to run away with the child, despite her husband’s warnings, sacrificing what is most precious to her: her hair.
Sicily. Giulia is a worker in her father’s wig workshop, the last of its kind in Palermo. She classifies, washes, bleaches, and dyes the hair provided by the city’s hairdressers. When her father is the victim of a serious accident, she quickly discovers the family company is bankrupt.
Canada. Sarah is a reputed lawyer. As a twice-divorced mother of three children, she ploughs through cases at breakneck speed. Just as she is about to be promoted, she learns she has breast cancer. Her seemingly perfect existence begins to show its cracks . . . But this is only if one ignores the incredible lust for life that keeps her going.
Laetitia Colombani’s The Braid is the powerfully moving story of three women’s courage in the face of adversity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Colombani's arresting debut follows three women facing extreme challenges in three different parts of the world. Smita, near 30 years old, lives in contemporary India, where she's of the untouchable caste, forced to clean the excrement from neighbors' latrines. In a parallel story, 20-year-old Giulia is in Sicily, and although she loves working with her father in his wig shop, the world of traditional goods is beginning to crumble. Lastly, 40-year-old Sarah is a lawyer in Montreal, and her obsessive work habits drive her body to a debilitating illness that she tries to conceal from the firm where she has become the first female partner. Suspense builds for each of these women as they struggle to make decisions in the face of their harsh realities. Intriguing strands connect the three: Smita's only offering to her god can be the magnificent hair shorn from her own and her daughter's head, young Giulia must expand the family business to an international market, and Sarah needs an exquisite wig when cancer takes her hair. A sense of urgency to learn how the stories will be resolved drives the fast-paced narrative. Each character's intimate perspective elucidates the courage that exists in every woman's life, regardless of age, culture, or station.
