For a time in pop culture, everyone had an obsession with piracy – no, not the hacked-TV-stick kind, the on-the-waves kind, with the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean and Black Sails reinventing the way that marauders were viewed by the wider public, transforming them from mere nautical thieves into likeable outlaws. One unfortunate side effect was the erasure of the many female pirates who held their own in the profession, something that Saltblood is keen to rectify.
Saltblood by Francesca De Tores is historical fiction – or rather historical part-fiction, as it concerns none other than Mary Read, a real-life English pirate who rose through the ranks of the navy before defecting to piracy and finding her life’s purpose there. Read herself is notorious enough to inspire songs about her escapades, pop up in television shows, and even appear as an Assassin’s Creed character of all things, so it’s not surprising that she takes centre stage here.
Saltblood‘s greatest strength lies in its grace in infusing real-world characters with depth and nuance; pirates such as Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham make appearances throughout, and are treated with the care of well-regarded secondary characters, full of foibles and contradictions, brimming with life. Best of all is Mary herself, a fluid, shifting avatar of identity, restlessly seeking adventure and home, finding both, at least for a time, on the waves, neither heroine nor villain.
De Tores’ main theme running throughout Saltblood is gender and the ways that, especially centuries ago, the performance of it could mean life or death. In the book’s opening chapters, Mary’s brother Mark dies and Mary is conscripted into impersonating him so as to ensure their financial security; this same dextrous performance ensures that Mary is able to transform in her career as a pirate, finding friendship and companionship when her gender identity begins to fracture and evolve. While it sometimes doesn’t stick the landing as well as intentioned, there’s no denying that there’s real skill behind De Tores’ exploration of the ‘gender binary’ and what it means to traverse it, particularly in a role all but dominated and defined by men.
A well-considered take on a historical figure, Saltblood is a startlingly, pleasingly bold re-examination of one of history’s pre-eminent pirates and filters her through the lens of gender, sexuality, and societal norms. Mary Read might not be as well known as Blackbeard or (shudder) Jack Sparrow, but works such as De Tores’ Saltblood are sure to help correct the narrative and introduce a whole new audience to one of history’s most notorious marauders.
Saltblood is out now from Bloomsbury Publishing.
