Customer Reviews

Egrets to the Flames

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Reviewed by Beth Cummings

I had high hopes when I began reading Egrets to the Flames. The press release claimed it was a "riveting, beautifully-written novel of family tension and high drama." What a disappointment.

According to the book, sugar cane fields are burned before cutting to rid the plants of extraneous foliage prior to harvesting. Also, according to the book, egrets are drawn to the flames of the burning fields and swoop in and out amid the smoke and fire - somewhat like moths are drawn to a light on a dark night. This book should have had some of its excesses removed before heading to the publisher.

Barbara Anton died in May 2007 after a short illness. Perhaps she was not in the best health as she wrote this book. The characters - five members of the Hampton family plus spouses, household help, pets, friends, lovers and illegitimate offspring - are unfortunately shallow and two-dimensional. The story follows approximately one year, but the author tries to fill it with a lifetime of problems.

James Henry Hampton III loves his wife but cheats on her every chance he gets with his best friend's wife-and the friend is well aware of the situation. For a while the book follows the youngest son, Henny (presumably a nickname for James Henry IV), but once he is forced to give up his high-school sweetheart and turns to drinking and cocaine, he is basically ignored for the rest of the novel. Only occasionally does his mother worry about his whereabouts. Other characters file in and out of the book in the same wa, and it is really hard to care about any of them.

While I normally enjoy a good family saga, I am sorry to say that Egrets to the Flames did nothing for me. I wouldn't recommend spending time reading it.

Armchair Interviews says: Heed the reviewer's comments.

Egrets are frantic birds that seem to fly into disaster while nearby vultures wait for the looming feast borne of the deathly chaos. In this case, the egrets dive into the infamous fires of James Henry Hampton's sugar cane plantation in southern Florida.

James Henry has worked hard to develop his sugar cane, sometimes by straight, hard work and at other times through paying off Senators and lobbyists who keep voting for subsidies to keep his empire prosperous. He's a tough-talking, no-nonsense kind of guy who loves his wife and three children but always seems to say the wrong thing that provokes the most dysfunctional results.

There's Henny, the crack-addicted rebel son who wants to marry the daughter of a plantation field hand. Daughter Melisandra has divorced the love of her life and now wants to marry a Prince who has nefarious, gold-digging motives for agreeing to her proposal. Then there's Jeff who has married a Japanese woman and moved to Japan but comes home for Mel's wedding, bringing his wife who may or may not experience the most warm-welcoming reception.

Add to the melee conflicts among James Henry, union negotiators and the environmentalists trying to get the Hamptons to consider more than just themselves.

Adult children learn from their parents and the unbelievably whirling dervish plot in this novel spins the reader through a cycle of breathtaking events. Passion, rebellion and unexpected traumas transform this amazing family in ways you will be unable to predict but never forget!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on November 12, 2007

This novel, fiery title aside, scorches through a host of twists
and turns, seemingly bent on sending its characters through the
tortures of hell, which, once the sugar-cane fields start burning next
to the family mansion, don't seem that far away. A large cast of
characters, all dependent in some way on the "cane", are torn apart
(in one case, literally) and sometimes put back together, usually only
to self-destruct again in spectacular fashion. A searing indictment
of what money can do to a family.

This book reads like the script from an unproduced daytime soap: I was amazed at the head-spinning plot turns and couldn't help wonder whether this would be on TV someday. Even General Hospital would have trouble keeping up with the level of invention in this novel: seemingly every chapter grabs the wheel of the story and yanks it to the right or left, spinning off a cliff to land on the body of yet another dead or dishonored character from the novel. To borrow the novel's central metaphor, the characters are all egrets diving into the flames of the burning sugar-cane fields: they can't help it.

Egrets to the Flames strains at the seams with jaw-dropping cliffhangers and twists, determined to remain unpredictable at all costs. Set in Florida, on a sugar-cane impresario's estate, the novel features disease, hurricanes, drug-addicted profligate sons, racism, voodoo, and sex with all the wrong people. I half expected some of the dead bodies to come back with a hankering for sugar-coated flesh. Author Barbara Anton squeezes every last drop of melodrama from the sweaty setting.

Barbara Anton plumbs the depths of family gone wrong in her fever dream novel, Egrets to the Flames. A saga of a Florida sugar-cane-growing family, the book packs over-the-top plot twists, steamy sex scenes and political subtext into its pages, which seem to drip with the Florida heat. The complicated hero/anti-hero, James Henry, the patriarch of the doomed family, stomps through the novel like a cross between Patton and a centaur, fighting and screwing his way through friend and enemy alike. He gets his just desserts in true Greek tragedy fashion. Makes soap operas look restrained.

Reviewed by April Sullivan for Reader Views (10/07)


The large beautiful egrets dive and dip into the flames of the burning sugarcane fields of South Florida. Some singe their wings. Others blacken their white feathers. Even a few die. Yet, they are drawn to the flames and keep coming back for more.

"Egrets to the Flames" is the title of this novel and symbolizes the actions of the main characters in the story. Set in the late-twentieth century in Belle Glade, Florida, sugarcane grower James Henry Hampton is facing some of the toughest challenges of his life. The environmentalists and the union are pressuring him to ease up on some of his practices in the field and with his cutters, who are mostly Jamaican immigrant laborers. At home, things are even worse.

Although James Henry is the main character, we see life in the sugarcane business through the eyes of many. Jazzman is a Jamaican cutter who wants to start a reggae band. Grace is James Henry's wife. She worries constantly about her son Henny. Henny is supposed to take over the family business, but is caught up in drugs and alcohol, and fighting with his father over wanting to marry his pregnant girlfriend Beth, a field hand's daughter. Of their other children, Jeff is married to a Jap, and Mel is marrying a prince that she does not love. Then there is Vonda, Chip, and Steve. A family mixed up with the Hampton's in more ways than one.

Author Barbara Anton's writing invokes the feverish passion of a soap opera. One desperate act leads to another in this family and the action never stops. From confrontations about illegitimate children to drugs and alcohol and several deaths, the story always keeps you on your toes. Most chapters end in catastrophe and foreshadow something even worse coming around the corner.

I recommend "Egrets to the Flames" to those who like a fast-paced read with lots of drama. Every twist and turn kept my interest as I followed the Hampton family through their saga. With a happy ending for some, and a sad ending for others, the characters dip in and out of the flames in this exciting novel.

Received book free of charge.