Journalist Helene Cooper examines the violent past of her home country Liberia and the effects of its 1980 military coup in this deeply personal memoir and finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.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 … 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.
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Maybe this one was especially compelling for me, having spent time in Monrovia and being familiar with the history of Liberia, but it is nonetheless a wonderful account of a childhood nipped in the bud but not preventing a meaningful life from blossoming.
Liked it. It gave a view of the country that is Liberia.
This is the author’s memoir. Helene comes from a powerful Liberian family. As a decendent of some of the first people who founded the country, she spends her childhood in a 20 room mansion called Sugar Beach. She has all the comforts – air conditioning, servants, cooks, and even a chilhood playmate that comes to live with them to help eliminate some of her fears of growing up so secluded. She went to a prestigious international school, and enjoyed a lot of vacations all over the world.
However, in April, 1980, Liberian soldiers killed the president and his cabinet. Helene’s family (who were from a Congo klan) now became the hunted. After Helene’s mother is brutally attacked in their home, her mother takes Helene and her sister to America where it will be safe.
At this point, her whole life changes. A girl who grew up like a princess in Liberia is suddenly thrust into a culture she doesn’t understand, and doesn’t have the money or means that she had at home. Her parents had gotten a divorce, but her dad also lived in the United States. Helene had to learn how to be an American teenager. Her mother, who longed to return to Liberia, did return a short while after they moved to the United States. She sent Helen and her sister to live with their dad who – moving from job to job – was hardly scaping by.
Helene decided she wanted to be a journalist, and after graduating from college, she found herself working hard to get noticed by the big newspapers. Her big break comes when she is offered a journalist position with the Washington Post.
She travels all over the world, and after September 11th, joins journalist in Iraq. A near death experience sets her on a new path that leads her back to Liberia to find her childhood playmate and discover what has happened to her country that she left so long ago.
This was a great book. It is a well written memoir covering much of Helene’s childhood in Liberia, her time in the states, and then back to Liberia. The book takes place about 80% in Liberia itself. You get a good picture of what it was like for her to grow up without any wants and then to hear what she saw 20 years later when she returned to visit was astonishing. Nothing was the same.
I am glad I read this one. It was an easy and quick read, and I learned a lot about a country I knew nothing about.
Another book of strong outstanding women! Well written.