“…a little faith was fine, Lord knew she could use some herself, but…religion was like vitamin A: a little bit every day was good, but too much left you sweaty and unable to see straight.”
This sentence alone should send you running to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Natalie Baszile’s debut novel Queen Sugar. Baszile has a great story to tell, and she does it with equal parts charm, perception, and suspense.
Charley Bordelon, an African-American widow with a young daughter, inherits a sugarcane farm from her father. The bequest is entailed so that Charley can’t lease or sell the land: she must work it or lose it; so she leaves California for South Louisiana, determined to make something of her father’s land.
As soon as she arrives to take possession of the farm, her manager quits, having neglected to keep up the farm after her father’s death. As Charley reconnects with family, pulls together a team to work the farm, and gives herself a crash course in cane farming in time to salvage the growing season, her junkie half-brother Ralph Angel arrives, young son in tow, demanding a share of the inheritance. The land can’t be parted or transferred, per their father’s restrictive will, but Ralph Angel’s inability (or unwillingness) to understand that fact relentlessly ratchets the tension between the siblings—and all the while, the difficulties and complexities of cane farming pile at Charley’s door.
I liked Queen Sugar so much I can hardly decide which aspect to praise first. Baszile’s prose is lush, yet controlled, not unlike the sugarcane that drives so much of the story. The result is a perfect balance between joy in words—the “making pretty sentences” part of writing—and keeping the story moving. Her characters, especially Charley, are so vividly drawn that reading about them has all the excitement of meeting new people: when you finish this book, you’ll miss Charley and hope she’s getting along okay.
Queen Sugar also contains something many readers won’t have been expecting ever to see in modern fiction: a tasteful love scene that makes sense within the plot. My only serious complaint, and it almost feels nitpicky, is that the book ends very quickly—it ends well, but so abruptly that leaving Charley’s world jars the reader the same way stepping off a rollercoaster does. Baszile’s barely-fictional corner of Louisiana is so familiar and pleasant that you’ll wish you’d been eased out more gently.
Queen Sugar also confronts race, pulling off the magnificent feat of dealing with Louisiana’s least comfortable subject without resorting to melodrama or stereotype. California-raised Charley hesitates to expose herself and her daughter to the prejudice she expects to find in the South, but finds the situation more complex than she thought. Black and white mix at town carnivals and zydeco dances; and while most characters are deeply aware of race, they also recognize the need to cooperate. When a friend thoughtlessly makes a remark that deeply offends Charley, she becomes justifiably furious but, just as justifiably, works to forgive her friend—someone she recognizes as a basically decent man.
To an extent, Baszile based Queen Sugar on her own family’s story: her father grew up in Elton, and left Louisiana for the metaphorically, if not literally, greener pastures of California as a teenager. On a visit to relatives back in Louisiana, she glimpsed the world of cane farming and began to develop the story that would become Queen Sugar.
Over twelve years of writing, she made numerous research trips to South Louisiana, taking part in nearly every activity, farming-related and not, that she describes in Queen Sugar. Her admirable, enviable dedication shows in her book; granted, I don’t know much about sugarcane farming, crawfish hatcheries, or farm-equipment auctions; but all of Baszile’s explanations, easily woven into her story, have the ring of authenticity. She’s either a phenomenal researcher or a magnificent bluffer; either way the richness of detail she’s able to add builds an immersive, seductive world.
Queen Sugar deserves a book reviewer’s highest praise: in a profession where free books are easy to come by, Queen Sugar is worth paying for—even the full hardback price. This one’s gold, readers. Buy a copy, read it, and then join me in hoping it takes much, much less time than twelve years for Natalie Baszile’s next work to hit shelves.
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