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I expected them to be great books given reviews I had read by others, which might have contributed to my lack of enthusiasm after reading them. Mail will not be published required. Comment moderation is in use. Please do not submit your comment twice. It will appear shortly. Time4Learning provides homeschool curriculum , preschool through 8th grade.

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Alice MacLeod, Realist at Last. As for the landscape, I will confess that south Louisiana is pretty flat, which was jarring to my senses when I first started going down there to do research.


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I was accustomed to more variation-all the shapes and elevations you see in a city, along the coast, or in the mountains. But I quickly came to appreciate beauty in the gentle curve of a bayou, and the contrast between blue sky and endless acres of green sugarcane. Queen Sugar took almost exactly twelve years to write.

I quit my job on June 15, I remember the exact date because that was the day I left my family business, started writing in earnest, and officially thought of myself as a writer. I got a book deal in July My grandmother had been a prominent member of her community, a founding member of her church, and she seemed to know everyone.

The One and ONly Miss Violet Remy

When she died, everyone in Elton, as well as people from nearby towns, showed up for her funeral. The little church was packed. People stood in the aisles, poked their heads through the windows, spilled out into the churchyard. I suddenly understood that I needed to tell a larger story. Why did you decide to structure the book this way?

I wanted the novel to take place during one season, which, for sugarcane, begins in March when farmers start cultivating their fields, and ends on December 31st when the harvest, called grinding, ends. What better way for readers to truly understand what happens during each period of the growing cycle than to divide the book into months? I also thought it was important, critical even, that the reader feel the pressure of time passing just as Charley does, so organizing the book by month seemed like the natural choice.

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Charley is a nuanced character: Did she arrive fully formed when you began writing the novel, or did she develop over various drafts? Charley definitely evolved over time. For a long time, she was too well-mannered, too polite. All the other characters were flawed in some way, and that made them human, relatable. But for the longest time, Charley never lost her temper, never fell apart; she never made a mistake.

At one point, one of the women in my writing group got so frustrated, she actually yelled at me: I was too well-mannered. We both needed to loosen up. Because the truth is, perfect characters, just like perfect people, are boring. Once I relaxed and allowed myself to be more vulnerable, less reserved, experience the full range of emotion, I could imagine that for Charley.

And once I did that, she came to life. The level of detail you provide about sugar cane farming-equipment, methods, terminology-is impressive. How much research did you need to do before writing this book?

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I did tons of research; I had to. Many of my closest friends live in south Louisiana, and some, for a time, even farmed sugarcane, so I knew the story had to ring true. That was always my goal, the ultimate test: The farmers I met were incredibly generous.


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  8. They let me ride on tractors and in combines, and they took me through the sugarcane mills. They even let me plant sugarcane. From until , I visited Louisiana every quarter so I could experience a different aspect of the growing season and also soak up the culture.


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    There was no way I could sit at my desk and make up those details. The name Ralph Angel is an unusual one, but also ironic considering his behavior. How did you choose this name? I felt a jolt-as though someone had dropped a huge cement block nearby or something exploded underground. How does Charley manage to move past this? She is deeply disappointed because she and Remy are otherwise so compatible.

    Was she too determined to blame herself for his failings or do you believe that the sadness of his life is her responsibility? She loves Ralph Angel the way any mother loves her child, or in this case, her grandchild. But I will also say that Miss Honey is blinded by her own guilt.