Sweet Hope (91)

by Mary Bucci Bush

Sweet Hope is a novel about the friendship between two families, one Black and one Italian, living and working together on a Mississippi Delta cotton plantation 1901-1906. Italians were illegally imported to the South under false pretenses and held in a contract labor system designed to put and keep them in debt while the few remaining African American sharecroppers taught the Italians to work cotton, speak English, and survive. A vicious manager/ overseer, an absentee plantation owner, a rape, an interracial "Romeo and Juliet" love affair, a murder, and hints of a Federal investigation complicate the characters' lives as they learn bitter truths about race and friendship in America.

The novel was inspired by the childhood experiences of Bush's grandmother and her family who were unwitting participants in the "Italian Colony Experiment."

402 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Sylvia Needel]

Awesome book - I've asked the author for a sequel - I want to know what happens to the Pascala family and the Hall family - if the connection they've developed over the years at Sweet Hope lasts.

[Amanda Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good collection

[Mamma23 · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you finish a good book, for a few days afterward you kinda can't function? Well, I do that, and did after reading this book in one long weekend.

It is beautifully written, poignant and rich- weaving a story of Italian immigrants who came to this country at the beginning of the 20th century full of hopes and dreams, only to suffer as indentured servants.

I did not know that Italians worked side by side with sharecropping families of former slaves and this book highlights their relationships. Stories of two main families intertwine (the Italian Pascalas and the Halls who are African-American)in a way that makes you feel like you are right there with them.

The characters are well drawn and engaging, and the backdrop of the delta region is painted fully with its moodiness and mystery.

I recommend this book to any American whose ancestors came here to find a better life; it will give you a new appreciation for the sacrifices people made back then. Further for anyone interested in a great story with a historical significance which to this point has been mostly unrecognized.

[Rose Kelleher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterfully written, thoroughly researched, and a fascinating bit of history I had never heard of before.

I find it interesting that the author struggled for years to get this book published, and in the end it was a Canadian publisher that accepted it. I suspect the story made American publishers uncomfortable. There are aspects of Italian-American history that people don't like to talk about because they don't quite mesh with the accepted narrative.

There are flaws. There's one scene in particular that just doesn't fit in with the rest of the book, it's like something out of "Fried Green Tomatoes" and just struck me as kind of silly. And there are a couple of times where the symbolism seemed a bit much. Overall, though - wow.

[Juris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Through the Pascala and the Hall families, Bush tells the story of Sweet Hope, a delta plantation in Arkansas in the beginning of the 20th century. Based on a real plantation called Sunnyside, which existed in the Antebellum period and turned to sharecropping in the 1900's. The story is an important one that is little known to many.
After the Civil War brought the end of slavery, many cotton plantations were forced to use indentured servants. Tricked into emigrating from Italy to America with promises of a better life, the Pascalas find themselves bound to Sweet Hope due to debt peonage set up by the plantation owners. As they work to try to get themselves out of debt, they find themselves making friends with the Hall family, former slaves that stayed to work in the plantation. A story of family, immigration, race, injustice, love, and survival; Bush's novel tells an important and engaging story.