How can something so “overdone” be told in a fresh, new way? Somehow, West manages to do just that – telling a new and relevant story worth reading. Yes, stories of black people during the civil rights movement have been told countless times. With each page, you are transported back in time with music by artists like Sam Cooke and Nina Simone, speeches by Martin Luther King Jr, quotes from James Baldwin, and prose from Langston Hughes. West builds the setting with precision, layering references to black culture in Memphis during the 1960s. Her bold and honest thoughts make her complicated and magnetic. My favorite moments are inside Sara’s head.

Her powerful words beckon you to taste each scene. This is Catherine Adel West’s second novel, but it feels like she has written dozens. Someone needs to make The Two Lives of Sara into a movie. When you read the last word, you’ll want more of Sara and the rest of the characters. Can Sara overcome pain again and learn to love amid grief, or will it consume her? Just as she succumbs to happiness it is suddenly snatched from her grasp when Mama Sugar’s past collides with Sara and Jonas – forever altering their paths. The boarding house offers her lively discussions about segregation, politics, black literature, and music. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop, a wary Sara rebuilds her life - learning to love her unwanted son, finding romance, making friends, and nurturing a mother-like bond with Mama Sugar’s grandson Will. Their budding romance eventually chips away at her tough exterior.

She soon bumps heads with Jonas - an uppity school teacher with grand ideas about hope, education, and civil rights. Mama Sugar and her husband Vanellys welcome Sara and her son to The Scarlet Poplar to help run the place. Though guarded and resilient, Sara’s walls are eventually torn down by unexpected love and friendship - but her past continues to haunt her. She escapes the pain and secrets of her life in Chicago and finds a haven in a Memphis boarding house. It’s the 1960s and Sara King is pregnant, single and black.

The two lives of sara a novel