Thierrybazzanella.com - The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood

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Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9780743266246
ISBN: 0743266242
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2008-09-02
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Studio: Simon & Schuster

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Editorial Reviews:

Helene Cooper is "Congo," a descendant of two Liberian dynasties -- traced back to the first ship of freemen that set sail from New York in 1820 to found Monrovia. Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. It was also an African childhood, filled with knock foot games and hot pepper soup, heartmen and neegee. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child -- a common custom among the Liberian elite. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as "Mrs. Cooper's daughter."

For years the Cooper daughters -- Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice -- blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage. But Liberia was like an unwatched pot of water left boiling on the stove. And on April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers staged a coup d'état, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet. The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped. After a brutal daylight attack by a ragtag crew of soldiers, Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America. They left Eunice behind.

A world away, Helene tried to assimilate as an American teenager. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she found her passion in journalism, eventually becoming a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. She reported from every part of the globe -- except Africa -- as Liberia descended into war-torn, third-world hell.

In 2003, a near-death experience in Iraq convinced Helene that Liberia -- and Eunice -- could wait no longer. At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper's long voyage home.

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Interesting Story, but very dry
Comment: I thought I would love this memoir, but the writing style just didn't draw me in. It just lacked something. I found the background on the slave trade interesting, though.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Enjoyed the background history of Liberia
Comment: I have always been interested in the Liberian "experiment" and how it started. This book gives an interesting historical background of the founders. After that, I was really disappointed with the memoir aspect of this novel. The author gives a very detailed perspective on her life and her people, less on the indigenous natives of Liberia or "townies". Something was missing, a sort of compassion for the people who could not/ or would not leave. It was written so matter of factly. As a youth, she didn't care for the House on Sugar Beach, until she was forced to leave that priviledged lifestyle. Chapter after chapter of self promotion, her expensive ACS education and trips to Spain was a bit much. Then she gallantly writes about her mediocre writing because she felt she deserved the plumb assignments. Can you say Self indulged? That whole Iraq chapter really got under my skin. Other than the fact that did escape with her family, her memoir was nothing to write home about.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Book
Comment: This book was not a historical document. Meaning it didn't tell me much about the history of Liberia that I didn't already know. What it did do was help me dive into the way of life of the so called elite and their children during those pre-coup years. Very easy and fun read.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A glimpse at Liberia.
Comment: A memoir by Helene Cooper detailing her family's history as far back as 1820, as it educates the reader about the peoples of Liberia and the war that eventually engulfed her homeland.
While the main thread of the story takes the reader from Liberia to the US and back again to Liberia, it also depicts the disparities that existed and allowed to simmer between the 'congo' and 'country' peoples.
Through it all Helene experiences a rich and loving family life. At her father's death she declares "everyone dies, but not everyone lives. You did live, Daddy..."
A multilayered and multifaceted story.

Customer Rating:

Summary: LV REVIEWER
Comment: A very readable book. Interesting story about the founding of Liberia and the author's priviledged life as a descendant of the founding families. This life is shattered in a military coup and the author and part of her family escape to the US. We follow the author as a teenager through Tennessee and North Carolina, to the University of North Carolina, then as a journalist in Rhode Island and eventually as foreign correspondent for the New York Times. It includes an excellent piece on her return to Liberia where she is reunited with members of her family and, in particular, her adopted sister who was also her best friend.

I liked this book but I didn't love it. Before I bought it, I heard an interview with the author on NPR. The interview and phone - ins were fabulous. They talked about her transition from privileged elite in Africa to a black teenager in Knowville; about the irony of black Americans colonizing Africa; about coup after coup after coup in Liberia. I ordered the book the minute I got home. The written account lingered too long on becoming a teenager in Liberia and what her frieds wore to their prom. I didn't get very much about the establishment of Liberia, or the lives of relatives who remained in Liberia after the first coup, or descrimination in America.

A week after I finished the book I heard a second NPR interview with the author. She talked about descrimination in America and how she did not carry the baggage of being immersed in it from early childhood, so when she encountered it at UNC and later, it struck her a stupid rather than painful. If that was in the book, I missed it.

Overall, my conclusions: 1) a good, readable book with some excellent bits. 2) NPR does great interviews.

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