The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo unfolds from the detritus of empire: the gaudy baubles, the cherished mementos, and the trappings of office, whether salt or dice or garments. Empires might be won with weapons, but they are kept with culture. The Empress In-yo knows this when she arrives, a girl in the sealskin finery of her homeland that is ill-suited to the swelter of her new land. And as she sets about exploiting it in order to free her people, the book invites us to wonder what she is winning and what she is losing along the way.
The descriptions of various objects head the chapters like museum plaques, robbed of emotion and of context. It’s a clever narrative construction, as it immediately creates a layer of remove from the source of the narrative, the Empress In-yo. Objects, to those unfamiliar with their history or use, are silent. They give up their secrets grudgingly and incompletely, much like rulers do.
Chih is a (nonbinary! Woo!) Cleric dedicated to the preservation of history, and wants to draw out secrets from anything and everything. With them is Almost Brilliant, a type of magical hoopoe capable of perfect recall. The two are meant to attend the ascension of the new empress, but they pause to investigate a near-forgotten palace. The palace has been sealed away by magic and by decree of the former Empress of Salt and Fortune In-yo, who did not wish the details of her past to become public fodder. While exploring and recording the contents of the palace, they meet Rabbit, the old empress’s most trusted and beloved handmaid. Rabbit has her own secrets and biases, and creates another layer of remove from In-yo even as she reveals some of the objects’ secrets.
Rabbit reveals the history of a young woman given in tribute to the Emperor of Anh, just as Rabbit herself was given in lieu of taxes to the imperial palace. Rabbit serves by cleaning floors; In-yo serves by becoming a wife and birthing an heir. Both are underestimated women who stoke those low opinions, the better to hide their true abilities. Because In-yo, daughter of a conquered but unbroken people, is seizing power of her own.
Though it’s a brief novella, I was repeatedly surprised by the number of twists packed into the narrative. They aren’t “gotcha” horror-style twists, just moments of insight and cleverness that keep the stories from ever growing predictable, even though this is a story we all know. It’s the story of the underdog rising up, the story of justice. And it’s also the story of justice not fully done, of the inherent unfairness of empire.
In-yo, a foreigner and a young woman in a patriarchal society, is our underdog. And she recruits other underdogs, the servants and fortune-tellers whom the empire ignores. But from a sadistic general killed by a spindle to the eye, to a great mage persuaded to shift his allegiances by a disappeared daughter, the war was truly fought and “won by silenced and nameless women” (82). There is grim satisfaction in their shared triumph.
But of course, In-yo has a name. She is the key on which the rebellion turns, the key that unlocks her people’s freedom and her enemies’ defeat. So does that make it more her story, or is the story Rabbit’s? Does In-yo get to shape history, or is In-yo a smaller girl wearing the persona of the Empress of Salt and Fortune? Is she the avatar of the dispossessed, or a further shadow hiding their names?
Rulers—especially imperial rulers—are more and less than people. They cannot be fully known. They also cannot be fully impartial or fully equitable. Empire in some ways precludes fairness, something Vo explores implicitly, while still giving the
The prose is subtle and lyrical, elegant but not effusive. Vo conveys depth of feeling with an absolute minimum of words and scenes: a tragic love story, a great sacrifice, a terrible duty, and plot after skilful plot. It’s a masterpiece of understatement and implication. This is the little black dress of books: it gives the impression of effortlessness while being quietly meticulous in every stitch. And it’s for everyone. I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t like this book. The Empress of Salt and Fortune has everything, and nothing in excess.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of March 24th 2020.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.
A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage. Alone and sometimes reviled, she has only her servants on her side. This evocative debut chronicles her rise to power through the eyes of her handmaiden, at once feminist high fantasy and a thrilling indictment of monarchy.
