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| The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood | 
 enlarge | Author: Helene Cooper
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $15.01 (60%)
New (53) Used (16) from $9.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 929
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0743266242
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9780743266246
ASIN: 0743266242
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Never Read.
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Product Description
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'etat, 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Going Home Through the Pages of a Book. September 8, 2008
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
Ms. Cooper's story is, in so very many ways, my story, too. I grew up in Liberia, a "second-class" American because we were missionaries and not American Embassy personnel. My years at the American Cooperative School overlapped hers; I had the same first grade teacher as her little sister. I bought ice cream at Sophie's (mind the flies!) and ate hamburgers at Diana's. How many times I drove past that same three-headed palm tree! Like her, I left in my early teens, without properly saying goodbye.
Samuel K. Doe's coup d'etat stole Ms. Cooper's childhood; Charles Taylor's invasion in late 1989 stole mine.
Much has been said about Liberia's descent into chaos. But what is never spoken of, in all the reports and documentaries, is the old Liberia - the Liberia that I love, the Liberia of my heart, the Liberia of people who have never given up hope, even in the darkest hour, that they can rebuild out the ashes of evil.
It will be several years yet before I can make the trip that Ms. Cooper has, and return home. I'd like to stand in our old house on Old Road, if only just to prove that the first 15 years of my life weren't a dream. Maybe the mango tree is still there. In the meantime, I have her book, to help me remember that I have come from somewhere. Home is still there, in the coalpots and red dirt roads, in the potato greens and the palm butter, in the sound of the ocean at night.
For all the horrors that war has visited upon my hometown, Liberia stands. The rice bird still sings.
Descent Into Madness For Liberia September 6, 2008
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Helene Cooper has written a memoir of her privilege African childhood in Liberia before the slaughters of the civil war destroyed the country and her lifestyle. Descended from a family of strong women, she comically describes their mansion at Sugar Beach before the horrors of the soldiers. Written in a you are there style, she conveys all changes of coming to America as a nobody and remaking herself as a journalist. The last part of the book concerns her journey homeward to search for a lost foster sister and to come full circle again.
Could not put the book down September 8, 2008
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I eagerly awaited the release of Cooper's book after reading the excerpt in the New York Times Magazine earlier this spring. The book arrived and did not disappoint. I could not put the book down and finished it in one sitting. Cooper's writing is honest, sincere and raw. I found myself drawn to her childhood and her adventures as if they were my own. While Cooper leaves out answers to many questions I had about her life in high school and college, she does come full circle in acknowledging the impact of her childhood on her life today. A masterful book. I was left wanting to read more about the Coopers.
A. Drinnen September 13, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I finished The House at Sugar Beach in a day an a half; I just could not put it down. Helene Cooper objectively and clearly paints a picture of privilege and wealth of the Congo People in the country of Liberia, West Africa, as they lived and interacted with the poverty and subjugation of the Native people. She is able to make the reader see and feel the emotions and tensions of the country just before it's entire infrastructure was destroyed by a horrible Civil War. She reminisces through her childhood in want of nothing, and carries the reader along as she struggles with fears of the unknown spirit world, the pomp and formality of her social strata, and the joy of life that was so abundant in everyone during those prewar years. We get to intimately know her family and their outstanding importance to the history of the settlement of the country. She helps us understand how the tensions arose that caused such devastation to the only country in Africa that America helped settle; and she describes the horrors the War brought to her family as they fled the country in fear of their lives. As she noted, her family "boarded the plane in Liberia as "privileged, elite Congo People", but arrived at their destination in America as "African refugees."
Cooper then tells us about her adjustments and growth in her new home; and about the schools and attitudes in the South about the "new kid" with the funny accent. It took a while, but Cooper comes full circle with her emotions and finally was able to return to her country and face her beloved, but destroyed past. She finds satisfaction in the fact that the country of Liberia has survived along with a few faithful people who represented a vital part of her family.
The reader is on a roller coaster of emotion as Cooper makes us cry and laugh, sympathize and get angry on almost every page. This book is an excellent read for the early American or African history buff, for the person who just wants a really good story of the maturing of a young girl through family struggles and situations of life, and most especially for anyone who has ever had any contact at all with West Africa.
The Love of Liberty brought us here... September 16, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I walked into Starbucks on Saturday and the title of the book caught my eye...why? because I was born in Liberia and grew up in a house on Sugar Beach. I read the book in 7hrs, emailed all my friends and told them they had to read it. Ms. Cooper took me home after 18yrs away. I was taken back to my life as an 11yr old growing up with my cousin on Sugar Beach. I felt every emotion Ms. Cooper felt when she first moved to Sugar Beach. I laughed and cried all at the same time. It was worth every dollar spent.
I do hope to go back to Sugar Beach in the future and see what has become of it.
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