The Braid

The Braid by Laetitia Colombani

Where does courage and perseverance and will come from?  And if you've never had to answer that question, do you think you have the courage and perserverance and will to do what you need to survive?   This is the story of three women in three countries around the world called upon to do what they never thought they would, and how one thing bound them together. 

Smita is in India and she is an untouchable.  Now, I always knew about people in this caste but the things I learned about how she had to live and the things she had to do just about scared me to death. Smita has a daughter who wants to go to school and Smita is willing to do anything in this world to give that to her.  She certainly doesn't want her daughter to have the life SHE had and if she didn't dig deep that would happen without a doubt.

In Sicily we meet Giulia.  She works for her father in his wig workshop.  This life, too, was fascinating.  When Giulia's father falls ill it is her responsibility to keep the shop going, keeping their employees in their jobs and food on her family's table.  But the market has changed, theirs is the only workshop left  and what she didn't know was that her father was within mere days of having to close the shop and losing everything.

Sarah is a power woman.  She put everything in her life off while she pursued her career, even to the point of hiding her pregnancies and coming back to work within a week of giving birth.  She is climbing the promotion ladder at work and is in line to get what she gave up her whole life for.  Then she learned she had breast cancer.

Now reading about these three women here, you can probably guess the progression of this story but really, the author has made learning about the the lives of these women fascinating and enlightening and makes anyone reading it question if they have the courage and perseverance and will to do what they did.