Sugar Land

by Tammy Lynne Stoner

Overview

A novel of a lesbian coming of age in Depression-era small-town Texas: “The love child of Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown . . . [a] ravishing debut.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
It's 1923 in Midland, Texas, and Miss Dara falls in love with her best friend―who also happens to be a girl. Terrified, Miss Dara takes a job at the Imperial State Prison Farm for men. Once there, she befriends inmate and soon-to-be legendary blues singer Lead Belly, who sings his way out (true story)―but only after he makes her promise to free herself from her own prison…
 
“The story takes many delightful twists and turns, always described succinctly and colorfully by this narrator, who is irresistible even on days when she's ‘retaining enough water to grow rice in Arizona’ . . . A postcard of small-town Texas life from Prohibition through civil rights, tracing the treatment and awareness of gay people through these decades.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“How can you not adore a novel about love, food, and how working in a prison can help you discover who you really are? Every page has a beating heart; every character is so alive, you swear you hear them breathing. Stoner is an original and this debut is just fantastic.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times–bestselling author of With or Without You

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597096263
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	09/30/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Tammy Lynne Stoner’s work has been selected for more than a dozen anthologies and literary journals. She was nominated for a Million Writers Award and earned her MFA from Antioch University. Stemming from what her grandmother calls her “gypsy blood,” Tammy has lived in fifteen cities, working as a biscuit maker, a medical experimentee, a forklift operator, a gas station attendant, and a college instructor, among other odd jobs. She is the creator of Dottie’s Magic Pockets and the publisher of Gertrude Press, based in in Portland, OR, where she lives with her lady-friend, Karena, and their three kids.

Interviews

https://www.hastybooklist.com/home/author-interview-tammy-lynne-stoner

Editorial Reviews

...the story takes many delightful twists and turns, always described succinctly and colorfully by this narrator, who is irresistible even on days when she's "retaining enough water to grow rice in Arizona." By the end of it, she comes to believe "that each and every life has the number of trials it is destined to have, and if you take one away, another one fills its place….No life is easy and no life is hard; it's just what adjectives you choose to use to describe it." Dara's story is a postcard of small-town Texas life from Prohibition through civil rights, tracing the treatment and awareness of gay people through these decades.
The love child of Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown, Stoner is sure to win her own devoted following with this ravishing debut.
— STARRED Kirkus Review

Sugar Land by Tammy Lynne Stoner follows a wise and feisty lesbian woman as she frees herself from her own emotional and physical prison to a place of self-love and acceptance... Stoner has penned a novel that reads like Fried Green Tomatoes and The Secret Lives of Bees, and will touch hearts with its tale of a courageous and determined woman struggling against her own secrets, as well as of the patriarchy and intolerance of small-town, West Texas life.
—DP, Advocate

Dara is a teenager in 1923 when she falls in love with her best friend, another girl, in their small town of Midland, Texas. Scared of what might happen, she takes a job at the Imperial State Prison Farm for men, where she meets the legendary Lead Belly, a real-life blues singer who eventually sings his way to freedom, and in the process, shows Dara how to achieve her own. A powerful paperback that doesn't pull any emotional punches, Sugar Land is a debut you don't want to miss.
—Sadie Trobetta, Bustle

In 1923 rural Texas, 19-year-old Dara has fallen for her best friend Rhodie. In order to hide her forbidden love, she flees to a job as a cook at the Sugar Land Prison, where she befriends the incarcerated Blues singer Lead Belly and tries to stay in the closet by marrying the prison warden. “Dara's story is a postcard of small-town Texas life from Prohibition through civil rights, tracing the treatment and awareness of gay people through these decades. The love child of Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown, Stoner is sure to win her own devoted following with this ravishing debut.” (Kirkus)
—Oakland Public Library, "Ten Great Reasons to Read Fiction October 2018"

[Sugar Land] is about improbable kindnesses stubbornly taking root in harsh environments; the resourcefulness of people who feel they’ve been cursed not just by society but their own desires; and how the toughest prisons are often the ones we create for ourselves.
—Houston Chronicle

It’s a story that deals with heavy themes such as racism and gender and sexual discrimination and violence, but one that stoner writes with such a tender, warm lilt that readers don’t get bogged down. Her characters are complex, fully drawn and utterly alive thanks to stoner’s deft deployment of pitch-perfect regional dialogue.
—ArtsAtl

From the Publisher

"Once you start reading, you will not be able to stop nor will you want to." &mdash Amos Lassen Reviews

Amos Lassen

11/15/2018

DEBUT In 1923 Texas, 19-year-old Dana and Rhodie's burgeoning romance doesn't stand a chance. After Dana overhears her cousin, Sheriff Earl, boasting about beating lesbians and running them out of his jurisdiction, she leaves Rhodie and takes a job as a cook at the state prison in Sugar Land, TX. There, she ignores Rhodie's letters from college, befriends inmate blues musician Leadbelly, endures sexual harassment from the sadistic head chef, and eventually marries the widowed prison warden. After he passes away, "Nana Dana" remains close to her two stepdaughters, moves into a cat-filled trailer home, and enters the 1950s assuming that she will be lonely for the rest of her life. Tanya May Rogerton, a local dressmaker (and widow) may be able to change Dana's solo destiny if Dana can just let it happen and enjoy herself. Racism, sexism, and homophobia have an impact on all of the characters, and Nana Dana is resilient and relatable and doesn't always follow the path readers might want. VERDICT In this engaging and authentic tale of one woman's life and loves, debut novelist Stoner follows in the bright legacy of Southern humorists such as Fannie Flagg, Rita Mae Brown, Bailey White, and Rebecca Wells.—Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast

Library Journal

★ 2018-07-31

The long, wondrous life of a mostly closeted Texas lesbian, from teenage years in the kitchen at the men's prison to old age in a trailer off RR 23, with the 20th century rolling by in the background.

"My first workday at the Imperial State Prison Farm for men was February 8, 1923." When we meet Miss Dara, she has traveled from her home in West Texas all the way to a prison on the outskirts of a steamy, smelly little town called Sugar Land, near Houston. She is hoping to escape the fallout of her passionate love affair with a girl named Rhodie who comes in to buy eggs at the egg store where Dara works—"how could I not love a girl with a butterfly scarf and a bow with no arrows?" At the prison, Dara meets several characters who will greatly influence her life: the horrible and predatory head cook; a mustachioed co-worker named Beauregard; the Warden, a decent man who will play an unexpectedly large role in Dara's future; and a talented if violent prisoner named Huddie. Huddie Ledbetter turns out to be the real-life musician Lead Belly, who actually was pardoned by the governor for his singing. From these beginnings, the story takes many delightful twists and turns, always described succinctly and colorfully by this narrator, who is irresistible even on days when she's "retaining enough water to grow rice in Arizona." By the end of it, she comes to believe "that each and every life has the number of trials it is destined to have, and if you take one away, another one fills its place….No life is easy and no life is hard; it's just what adjectives you choose to use to describe it." Dara's story is a postcard of small-town Texas life from Prohibition through civil rights, tracing the treatment and awareness of gay people through these decades.

The love child of Fannie Flagg and Rita Mae Brown, Stoner is sure to win her own devoted following with this ravishing debut.

Kirkus Reviews