From the Publisher

Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and most important, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family's past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and stubbornly reluctant to reveal its secrets; but Sherry is determined to know the full story. In just a few days' time her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across the country with her mother, Dumpling, to join them. What Sherry and Dumpling find on their trip is far more important than a scenic site here and there - it is the assorted pieces of their family's past. Pulled together, they reveal a history of amazing survival and abundant joy.

Publishers Weekly

McFadden's Sugar and other titles remain key recent novels of black women's search for, and claiming of, origins; this flawed but engrossing multigenerational saga takes its place among them. Pregnant and chronically "displaced" at 38, Sherry sets off with her mother, Dumpling, on a road trip from Nevada to a family reunion in Georgia. Along the way, she presses the reluctant Dumpling for family stories, intending to write a history as a project of self-discovery. The road trip sections are awkward and perfunctory, but Sherry's transformations of Dumpling's stories-creating a book-within-a-book reaching back 150 years-are terrific. One memorable section relates how a group of slaves cannily manages to take over the plantation from its deranged master; a later section tells of Dumpling's mother, Lillie, who fled Georgia for a wild life in Philadelphia; a puzzling slap Sherry received from Dumpling at a family get-together is also eventually explained. With her deep engagement in the material and her brisk but lyrical prose, McFadden creates a poignant epic of resiliency, bringing Sherry to a well-earned awareness of her place atop the shoulders of her ancestors, those who survived so that she might one day, too. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Pregnant and unsettled about her life's direction, Sherry, an African American, persuades her mother, Clementine "Dumpling" Jackson, to drive with her from Nevada to Georgia for a family reunion. Sherry, now in her thirties, has been traveling the world, drifting from man to man trying to find where she belongs. She has been mostly estranged from her mother since taking up with a white piano player. Catching him cheating, Sherry leaves Chicago for Mexico, where she meets a new man. To continue her recovery, she wants to write a book in order to understand her past. Once on the road, Sherry shares her plan and asks Dumpling to tell her some of the family tales. McFadden (Sugar) cleverly weaves this story within a story, sparing little of the murder, rape, and incest the family has endured. While emotional, McFadden's prose avoids sentimentality as it traces Sherry's journey to understanding and forgiveness. Myra Lucretia Taylor's reading adds vitality to the story and skillfully captures the dialects of Dumpling and her descendants. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A displaced African-American woman and her estranged mother rediscover their heritage and each other en route to a family reunion in rural Georgia. With a fine new man and baby on the way, free spirit Sherry feels her life is finally on track, but she also realizes she cannot move forward without facing certain events from her past, including an inexplicable moment of violence in her childhood that distanced her from her mother Clementine "Dumpling" Jackson. With reconciliation and resolution on her mind, Sherry convinces her mother to drive with her to their ancestral home of Sandersville, Ga., to attend a family reunion. Along the way, Sherry questions her mother about their shared ancestry in the hopes of writing a family history. The story then shifts to Sherry's imagined version of that history, beginning with her Yamasee Indian great-grandmother Lou, who was abducted in childhood and sold into slavery. The resilient Lou has three children with fellow slave Buena Vista, all the while facing one harrowing experience after another. After the Civil War, and unaware that slavery has ended, Lou's children Jeff and Suce take over their cotton plantation from their weakened master and participate in several brutal (and perhaps justifiable) acts that foreshadow much of the family's tragedy for generations to come. Dealing with murder, rape and incest, this often grim tale is lightened considerably by a no-nonsense running commentary from the lovably flawed Dumpling, who thinks the past should be let go. Well paced, with excellent dialogue, Sherry's story-within-a-story is sometimes hampered by southern gothic cliches. Assured and engrossing tale of survival and forgiveness.

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Product Details

• ISBN: 0641873735
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641873737
• Format: Hardcover, 304pp
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Pub. Date: February 2006
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 10,582