Queen Sugar

December 15, 2013
A debut novel about an African-American woman who struggles to salvage the Louisiana sugar cane farm she inherited from her father. Recently widowed, Charlotte "Charley" Bordelon feels compelled to take advantage of an odd inheritance from her father, Ernest. Unbeknownst to his family, Ernest had sold off his valuable California real estate holdings to purchase a failing sugar cane spread in his Louisiana birthplace. Now, Charley has no choice but to farm the land: Her father's trust prevents a sale. Going into meticulous and occasionally numbing detail, Baszile describes how Charley manages to find seasoned advisers to educate her on the mysteries of growing cane and how, with very little equipment, scant capital and much sweat over one steamy summer, the farm is gradually reclaimed from utter desuetude. But obstacles mount: Two local white corporate sugar moguls sling racial slurs and veiled threats. (As an African-American and a woman, Charley is a minority of one among the county's sugar cultivators.) A hurricane sets back months of arduous weeding and planting. A white colleague is proving dangerously attractive, until he makes a racially insensitive remark. But Charley's main hurdles are closer to home. Her grandmother, Miss Honey, with whom she and daughter Micah are living, can be irascible and stubborn; her favorite aunt, antagonized by Miss Honey, stays away, but Charley's chief nemesis is her older half brother Ralph Angel, also widowed. Resentful about being cut out of Ernest's will (presumably since he squandered his father's money on a drug habit), he has shown up, with his son Blue in tow, to pressure Charley to share her marginally profitable legacy. More detail on past traumas, for example, the profound depression that led Charley to neglect her daughter and the drug addiction that resulted in the death of Ralph Angel's wife, would have deepened readers' understanding of these characters' present behavior. Although the pace can be as slow as a humid bayou afternoon, the conflicts eventually ignite, leading to a cathartic close.

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December 1, 2013
Already a widow raising an 11-year-old daughter, Charley Bordelon is further disoriented by the death of her adoring father. He has left her an 800-acre sugarcane field in their native Louisiana, attaching clear restrictions that she must revive the farm or give it to charity, with no option to sell the farm or share it with her estranged half brother, Ralph Angel. So Charley and her reluctant daughter, Micah, relocate from L.A. to rural Louisiana, welcomed into the bosom of the family by her grandmother, Miss Honey. But they walk into old family tensions when Ralph Angel and his 6-year-old son, Blue, come for an extended stay. Charley arrives just in time for the growing season, facing dilapidated fields desperately in need of care. As a citified black woman with no experience in farming, can she make a go of it as a sugarcane farmer in an area that clings to privileges afforded to whites, males, and the wealthy? In alternating chapters, Baszile shows the separate paths that lead Charley and Ralph Angel back home in this exploration of family ties and disconnections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2013

Winner of the Hurston/Wright College Writer's Award and a runner-up in the Faulkner Pirate's Alley novel-in-progress competition, this work about an African American woman who inherits 800 acres of sugarcane land in Louisiana is already getting good feedback from early readers.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013

A mother and daughter leave Los Angeles behind to take up the 800 acres of Louisiana sugarcane left to them by the former's late father. This debut novel that has been compared to Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees follows the characters' first summer struggling to make the farm work within a racist industry, to mend family trauma, and to find themselves.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013

In this tightly written first novel, an urbanite from Los Angeles, Charley Bordelon, moves with her 11-year-old daughter to her father's old hometown in rural Louisiana to farm sugar cane on 800 acres of land left to her in his will. A black woman who had been struggling financially as a teacher, Charley is alternately frightened and exhilarated by the prospect of competing in an industry dominated by white Southern men. With a bare minimum of money to start with, she is often overwhelmed by the work required to make the neglected farmland profitable. Charley also suffers guilt over her estranged brother, who received nothing, and worries over the example she is setting for her unhappy, uprooted daughter. VERDICT The author blends the ups and downs of Charley's emotional life with the uneven rhythms of farming over the course of a year to keep the plot moving and readers invested. This family drama featuring a woman facing adversity head-on and finding inner strength should resonate with fans of Ayana Mathis's The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. [See Prepub Alert, 8/5/13.].--Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.