Description
From an exciting new voice in African-American contemporary fiction comes "a literary explosion...a stunning tale of love and loss" (The Chicago Defender). The novel opens when a young prostitute comes to Bigelow, Arkansas, to start over, far from her haunting past. Sugar moves next door to Pearl, who is still grieving for the daughter who was murdered fifteen years before. Over sweet-potato pie, an unlikely friendship begins, transforming both women's lives-and the life of an entire town.
Sugar brings a Southern African-American town vividly to life, with its flowering magnolia trees, lingering scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and white picket fences that keep strangers out-but ignorance and superstition in. To read this novel is to take a journey through loss and suffering to a place of forgiveness, understanding, and grace.
Reviews
Beautifully written, stunninly haunting
In the writing workshop I recently attended and in the book on writing I am now reading, I am constantly being reminded to hook the reader with that first sentence and paragraph. "Jude was dead" grabbed me from the beginning and had ahold of me until the last page was turned. This hauntingly beautiful tale of a "scarlet" woman and the small town without pity was an exercise in human nature. Sugar comes to Bigelow, a small African American town in Arkansas, in 1955 to live in a house next door to Pearl and Joe. Fifteen years earlier their daughter Jude was brutally murdered. There is something about Sugar that reminds Pearl of her beloved daughter and while the whole town shuns her, she befriends her. Sugar brings out the youth and makes Pearl laugh and enjoy life. Pearl has not laughed so much since before Jude died. Pearl, the virtuous wife and mother, pillar of the church has even taken to dying her hair and visiting the juke joints with Pearl and taken Joe with her. The town is horrified at Pearl taking up with Sugar and their back- biting curiosity turns to venom.
Sugar, abandoned, as a child and growing up around brothels just does what she know best, make men happy. She knows secrets about Bigelow that no one else knows. Sugar has never known love and when she meets Pearl's son she finds out what it is, alas, she is unable to accept it. A tragedy unfolds with devastating consequences that reveal the events of fifteen years prior.
This book is written in rich detail, realistic characterization and superb writing. This writer's ability to capture the look and feel of the 50s Jim Crow south and the people who inhabit this small town are amazing and there is no doubt this is a literary masterpiece. I'm told there will be a sequel; I can hardly wait.
Hey! I want more stars - cause this is a " 10 "
Listen, why are you still reading reviews...you should be ordering this book by now. If anyone has anything negative to say about this book....then they don't know a good read when they see one! LOL
Sugar is [ as they say these days ] off da' hook! There is no doubt that Bernice McFadden has written herself into the creme de la creme of authorship - ok I made the word up. ;-)
Sugar is about two friends that are soooo different, and from totally different backgrounds. Sugar is Ms. Thang and every man wants to "be with her!" Sugar raised to survive using what my moma called "her sweet lucy." There's Pearl who is totally opposite from her new found best friend; she was raised to be the perfect mother, wife, church lady, and model citizen.
The relationship that Ms. McFadden develops between them is soooo touching and dear. You are sure to get caught up in the lives of Pearl, Sugar and the whole town of Bigelow.
Hey, Get This One! Ms. McFadden you've got another Fan....can't wait for the new one to come!
Sugar is Sweet with a tinch of sour!
ANOTHER MUST READ NOVEL!
I finished SUGAR last night and wanted to share this with other readers. I literally carried this book around with me until I finished it last night. I read it under the dryer at the salon, in my car in Atlanta, GA traffic jams, at home in the bed...it was just that good. It's a wonderful story on how people go through unpleasant situations but they still survive. SUGAR and PEARL make you think of old and new friends. It's a MUST read, especially by other book club members! I assure you, you will not be disappointed. If you read and liked "Miss Ophelia" by Mary Burnett Smith then you will surely go out and buy this book today! Hurry up it's in local bookstores all over America, it hit the stands a few days ago!
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