The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper: book review

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood (2008) is the memoir of New York Times journalist Helene Cooper and her home country of Liberia. Part 1 is set in Liberia, West Africa, from 1976 to 1980, and Part 2 is set in America from 1980 to 2003.

Born in Liberia, Helene is a ‘Congo’ from the country’s wealthy elite, whose heritage dates back to the free people from New York to Monrovia in 1820. She grew up in a large house at Sugar Beach with her parents, sister Marlene, and friend-sister Eunice.

By 1979, ‘four percent of the population (the Congos) owned sixty percent of the wealth.’ The ‘Country’ people were ‘agitating for change’ after 150 years of one-party rule—the True Whig Party of old-guard Congos.

Helene was 14 years old when her family fled Liberia one month after the violent coup of May 16, 1980. They arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee, and she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina a year later when her parents separated. She lived with her father, while her mother returned to Liberia.

This memoir is about the childhood world she remembers in Liberia and her assimilation into America—her schooling, university life, and initial work as a Wall Street Journal reporter. She also details her decision to return to her homeland.

This is a well-told memoir, without sensationalizing her country’s violent history, and without seeking sympathy as she transitions from teenager to adult in America. There are comedic and witty scenarios as well as poignant decision-making incidences that make this an interesting account of key turning points in her life.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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