A not-so-sweet mystery in Sugar Town Queens

Book: Sugar Town Queens

Author: Malla Nunn

Listened to on audiobook read by Bahni Turpin

    I didn't know what "sugar town" meant when I started reading Sugar Town Queens. Which was a little silly, because I'd just been to a sugar town. But somehow I didn't put two and two together. In the book, Sugar Town is a shanty town outside (if I recall correctly) Cape Town in South Africa. It is eventually explained that it's named that because the town borders the sugarcane fields, and is where much of the sugar refinement and processing occurs. That's when it finally clicked for me. 

Sugar cane fields as they should be viewed:
in the morning sunlight through a dirty windshield.

    I'd recently been to a sugar town in Mexico (Mahuixtlán), and although that sugar town was much less destitute, the concept of one-stop sugarcane harvesting and processing held true. Approaching Mahuixtlán, I'd seen the sugarcane crops being harvested in a field, then loaded up in trucks that looped over into town. There was also a big parking lot for trucks here, presumably to help with shuttling sugarcane into the city and products out of it. The smokestack of the sugar refinement plant was prominent from the fields and in town (see shots below). We'd stopped by town for the liquor store Aguardiente de Mahuixtlán, where we sampled some syrupy flavored liquors made from refined sugar (this was where I had another revelation, regarding the namesake of Flor de Cañe, one of my favorite rums).

Entering Mahuixtlán — You can see the sugarcane fields to the right, and the town outskirts to the left. The smokestack of 
the sugar refinement factory is visible in the distance (the same one in the photo below).

Just inside the town — you can see a

truck with remnants of sugar cane in

its bed, and the smokestack of the

sugar refinement factory.

    But this isn't supposed to be about my random side trips in Mexico, it's supposed to be about the book. In Sugar Town Queens, the main character Amandla lives in Sugar Town with her white mother (the only white person in the town) Annalise. Amandla loves Annalise, but she's a little crazy, and her mother's delusions and premonitions, not to mention her whiteness, makes them stand out in the town. Amandla wonders they came to live in Sugar Town, what happened to her father, why don't they have any other family members, and what is wrong with her mother. Unfortunately, all of Amandla's questions go unanswered. Her mother can't remember anything about her past before having Amandla. Amandla suspects her existence — the fact that her white mother had a child with a black man — has something to do with the answer to the mystery. 

The book spins into a page-turner after the first few chapters, as Amandla seeks the answers to her questions. She forms new friendships with those in and outside of Sugar Town, comes to understand her mother better, and eventually finds the answers to all her questions.

-G

Finished: Jan 28, 2023

Would recommend? Yes

Would reread? No (Mystery: SOLVED!)

Recommended to me by: my mom <3