The House at Sugar Beach is part memoir of the author and part memoir of a country; as someone whose ancestors were instrumental in the founding of the nation she called home, Cooper is uniquely placed to bring an autobiographical eye to both her own life and the life of the country she grew up in but ultimately fled for her family's safety.
Cooper tells of the country's civil war through both her own eyes, and the eyes of those who were looking on. She is unable to tell the story through the eyes of the Civil War instigators, because they represent all that is murderous and wrong in Liberia. Under the auspices of ridding the country of corruption, rule by the wealthy elite, and social inequality, the coup leader, President Doe, brought in more of the these things than the country had ever seen and was ultimately seen as the most corrupt president Liberia has ever had, a dubious honor but nonetheless an indication of just how corrupt one man can be when presenting himself as completely the opposite.
Helene's return to the nation as an adult finds a country that is still in a state of constant civil war, one that has never fulfilled its promise because of dissent and violence that is a threat all the time. At the center of her feelings about this is the eponymous house in the book's title. Considering she spent only seven years living there, it might seem unusual for Cooper to have made it the title. but the fact that she did shows that despite the fact her family fled the land of her birth, it has still been the force that has governed her life. She has never fully dealt with what she experienced there, but does not realize this until she is almost killed in Iraq where she is working as a war correspondent that she begins to understand that the house is the catalyst for everything else that happens in her life and also the metaphor for everything else that happens in her country as well.
