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
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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