Sugar Cage (Paperback)

by Connie May Fowler (Author) "I don't know if it was luck or providence that put me in Rose Looney's motel room the day after her wedding..." (more)
Key Phrases: junior jewel, sugar cage, Uncle's Boy, Soleil Marie, Black Beauty (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
First novelist Fowler creates a lively chorus of Southern voices in this engrossing tale of domestic life, civil rights and the supernatural in 1960s Florida.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This first novel explores the stickily enduring bonds of love. Nine characters speak in alternating chapters: a reluctant psychic; a selfish, philandering husband; a sensitive, eccentric one; a finicky undertaker; a young soldier; an unhappy little girl; a Haitian migrant; and two widows, one merry, one grief stricken. This unlikely cast inhabits a narrative spanning 30 years. Some, like Soleil Marie, a sugarcane laborer, or Inez, who can't avoid seeing the future, speak with startling vividness. Others, like the child Luella, are less convincing. All are trapped behind the sweetly poisoned bars of the "sugar cage"--a "sign" in the dregs of one character's glass. Inez spots it: "bars glistening like white sand," a sure sign "she was going to let love eat her up." Runaway emotions devour some, others struggle to both love and survive. A Southern gothic tale, magically imaginative, yet harshly real. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/91.
- Lenore Hart, Machipongo, Va.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (October 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671748092
• ISBN-13: 978-0671748098
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #344,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The ways we entrap ourselves, and the ways we escape., February 11, 2002

By	David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Inez Temple is working as a maid in a cheap tourist hotel on the South Florida coast when she meets Rose Looney. A Haitian woman with an ability to "see' the outlines of peoples lives, Inez sees in the sugar crystals in the bottom of a glass Rose has drunk from the outlines of a cage and knows early on that Rose and her new husband, Charlie, and their friends Junior and Eudora, and their children, are destined to be trapped in many ways in the years to come.

15 years later, Rose knows this as well. How she struggles to find her way through her broken marriage and try to save her only son from the same fate in the midst of all the "bars of the cages" society and life confine her within--poverty, racism, sexism, cultural snobbery and so on, is at the core of this unusual tale of life in the melting pot that is South Florida.

The mysticism gets a bit out of hand at times-and stretches credulity it the process, but this is a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent novel.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sugar Cage, June 12, 2000

By A Customer

Connie May Fowler creates intimacy for the reader and all of the books characters. By bringing first person to all the characters we get to know more about how people choose the decisions they made and what motivates each one towards the life they choose. I really enjoyed the way she was able to keep the story progressing thorugh time but also using other's perspective on what occured or is occuring at the moment. Also the influences of Haitian voo-doo help add new depth to Florida southern culture. And gives new information to the reader about pagean religion and the intellegence and beauty it brings to the characters of this book. I felt her pride or her willingness to explore and place in a positive light Haitian voo-doo. I think the main essence of the book for me was that everyone needed to listen to thier own voice. And once they steered away from that is when thier lives turned towards unhappiness. The realness of coming to terms with our demons and releasing ourselves into our own strengths was what I felt Fowler was trying to get across. The beauty of how she used everyones perspective instead of one main character and narrator is what I enjoyed the most. I enjoyed being able to be sypathetic to everyone's life and the way they had/have chosen to live it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pulls you in from the very first sentence, December 18, 2004

By	Milli Thornton "author of Fear of Writing: fo... (Youngstown, Ohio) - See all my reviews

SUGAR CAGE weaves the story of such disparate people as Inez Temple, black maid to rich folks, Patrick Lackley, finicky mortician, and Charlie Loonie, front-man schmoozer for a local band. The women in this book will steal your heart -- especially the dear-hearted Inez, Charlie's loyal wife, Rose, and the magical Soleil Marie Beauvoir. The story is often dark and sad, but the mystical ending will inspire and uplift you.

For a first novel, I found the writing astonishing. Anyone who can make you care about so many contrasting characters (and make it easy to follow the thread) is a born writer. I adore a novel that pulls you in from the very first sentence . . . SUGAR CAGE does that.