Book Review 2
Liberian Literary Magazine Promoting Liberian Literature , Arts and Culture
Book Review 2
The House At Sugar Beach In Search of a Lost African Childhood
By Helene Cooper Illustrated . 354 pp . Simon & Schuster . $ 25
Reviewed by CAROLINE ELKINS SEPT . 5 , 2008
The skeletal remains of Africa ’ s numerous civil wars litter the continent , from the easternmost reaches of Somalia to the western shores of Liberia . It is there , overlooking the picturesque beaches of the Atlantic Ocean , that unknown numbers of human remains — victims of Samuel Doe ’ s reign of terror — haunt the earth . One building that serves as their communal headstone , itself a virtual skeleton , is physical testimony to the civil war that racked Liberia for nearly 25 years . This macabre marker is the house at Sugar Beach .
In her masterly memoir , Helene Cooper brings us back to the halcyon years when Sugar Beach , her family ’ s home , embodied the elite privilege and discoage chic to which Liberia ’ s upper class aspired . The Coopers ’ mansion , 22 rooms in all , rose in solitude out of the plum trees and vines that thicketed Liberia ’ s undeveloped coastline . Inside was a living homage to the 1970s , complete with velvet couches in a sunken living room , marble floors and a special nook for storing the plastic Christmas tree . Outside , where a carpet of grass stretched to the thunderous Atlantic , multiple servants made their home , and the latestmodel American cars — from a Lincoln Continental to a two-tone green Pontiac Grand Prix — awaited their next 11-mile journey into downtown Monrovia . Photo Fate , so it seemed , handed Helene Cooper a “ one-ina-million lottery ticket ” when she was born into “ what passed for the landed gentry upper class of Africa ’ s first independent country .” Both sides of Cooper ’ s family traced their roots to Liberia ’ s founding fathers — freed slaves from the United States who fought disease and the recalcitrant local population to forge a new nation . Their bravery and ingenuity were legendary , and their descendants soon formed Liberia ’ s upper caste .
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Credit Julia Hoffmann
At its heart , “ The House at Sugar Beach ” is a coming-of-age story told with unremitting honesty . With her pedigree and her freedom from internalized racism , Cooper is liberated to enjoy a social universe that is a fluid mix of all things American and African . “ None of that American post-Civil War / civil rights movement baggage to bog me down with any inferiority complex about whether I was as good as white people ,” she declares triumphantly . “ No European garbage to have me wondering whether some British colonial master was somehow better than me . Who needs to struggle for equality ? Let everybody else try to be equal to me .”
The young Helene Cooper oozes the awkward confidence of a privileged adolescent , and it is through her bespectacled eyes that we see the carefree decadence of Liberia in the years just before it descended into chaos . They are also the lenses through which we are introduced to Cooper ’ s distinctly female world . Atop the matriarchy is her maternal grandmother , the unforgettable Mama Grand . Cooper ’ s side-splitting portrayal of this hard-nosed , self-made landowner is nothing short of brilliant . With her gold-capped tooth glistening , Mama Grand is equally capable of dressing down a Lebanese merchant who “ thought he was going to cheat me out of my rent ” and berating the entire American government on camera for “ 60 Minutes .” The women are the backbone of Liberia in its heyday , but they show their true strength when the country collapses .
A subtle , nostalgic ache for a childhood foreshortened is the watermark imprinted on every page of Cooper ’ s story . The idyll at Sugar Beach , with its Michael Jackson LPs and Nancy Drew mysteries , was shattered when a ragtag group of soldiers — part of the rebel force that brought down the Tolbert government in 1980 , and with it over 150 years of oldguard , one-party rule — arrived on the scene . The stench of their inebriation , of their lust for violence , overpowered the tranquility that still lingered in the