Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile

NIGHTSTANDS & COFFEE TABLES

REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE

“Charley caught a scent of Louisiana on the June breeze; the aroma of red clay, peppery as cayenne, musty as compost, and beneath it, the hint of mildew and Gulf water.”

Recently widowed, Charley Bordelon leaves the comforts of Los Angeles to move back to her father’s hometown to manage a sugarcane farm willed to her by her late father. With no experience farming and very little time spent in Louisiana, Charley takes on the challenge against the advice of her California-based mother and unhappy teenage daughter. Charley and Micah move in with Miss Honey, Charley’s paternal grandmother, in south Louisiana and are suddenly immersed in family dynamics she had otherwise avoided on the West Coast.

Charley finds herself with lots of land to farm and little time to learn the ropes. She also encounters a community of farmers who doubt a black woman’s ability to oversee such an operation, and few people willing to help her. Micah is resentful of her mother’s decision to uproot their comfy California lives for a place with less people who look like her. For the first time, Charley and Micah stand out in the small town, and mother and daughter are forced to redefine themselves in a community hesitant to give them a chance.

Charley must fight to establish herself in this place and fulfill her father’s wishes. She is unsure of his intentions in leaving her the farm, but her fighting spirit resonantes in her confrontations with family members, her relationship with her daughter, and a budding romance. She must learn that what she thought she knew about life in California may not hold true in Louisiana, that people are not what they seem, and that old habits die hard even with the best intentions.

Baszile writes vividly, with details that allow readers to smell the Louisiana dirt or taste a summer watermelon. “Life should be as sweet as a cube of melon the color of your heart.” This book reminds us all what we love about the South, even with its flaws and shortcomings. We watch a woman come to love and appreciate the land through hard work and frustration. This novel is an ode to diligence, a sort of love letter to farmers, and a reminder of what a woman is capable of when she decides she will find a way.

Queen Sugar is Ouachita Parish Public Library’s 2020 River Reads: One Book, One Ouachita title. “The purpose of River Reads is to have a shared reading experience across the community,” says Danielle Tolbird, Communications Coordinator. The author of Queen Sugar, Natalie Baszile, will be a guest speaker at the library on April 23.