The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper

This memoir, without contest, is a phenomenal story. I can ask how and why, and offer remarks on this and that earmarking the family’s settling (from early 1800’s to the 1980’s/90’s) at Sugar Beach, but nothing will change this story, this song. What happened is what happened, and I, for one, didn’t miss a page taking it all in. Can I say it again? I keep coming across phenomenal storytellers in the western and southern parts of Africa. The kind that can write 400-500-plus page tomes and I not be inclined to skip words! 

The writing is clear, organized, touching, and humorous in appropriate places. The way the stories are weaved together, transitioning between tender memories, historical vignettes and political narratives is nothing short of spectacular. And the storytelling, delineating key people (and encounters) integral to Helene’s life, is simply fierce! 

Overall, anyone wanting a straightforward view of the slave trade, and its relationship to Liberia, the British, the United States and numerous African tribes will treasure this personal account. And anyone looking to read a story with teeth, will find it hard to put this book down. Highly recommended!