A Cup of Redemption

A Novel

Carole Bumpus

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781938314919
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Like the braiding of three strands of brioche, the lives of three women—Sophie Zabél Sullivan, Marcelle Pourrette Zabél, and Kate Barrington—become inextricably intertwined as each struggles to resolve issues from past wars that have profoundly impacted their lives. Sophie believed her childhood nightmares were safely behind her once she married and moved to the U.S. from France —until she is called to her mother, Marcelle's, deathbed to honor one final request: "Search for my father! Search for Pourrette!" Born on the last day of World War I, Marcelle, whose life epitomizes the human cost of war, never knew her father, yet carried the Pourrette name, along with the shame of illegitimacy, as did her two oldest sons born during World War II. Enlisting the expertise of a friend and family therapist, Sophie encourages Kate to join her in France to help find her grandfather scour the stain of illegitimacy from her family's name. Unbeknownst to Sophie, Kate's 34-year-old illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption during the Vietnam War, has recently reappeared. Kate, struggling with her own shame and guilt, pushes aside her feelings to join Sophie in France. Rising out of the collateral damage wrought by war, A Cup of Redemption is a touching story about love, loss, and the search for identity.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• List of Characters
• Prologue Search for Me. Search for Pourrette
• Chapter One A Flood of Memories
• Chapter Two Floating Island
• Chapter Three Treasure Found
• Chapter Four A Meeting with Madame Chirade
• Chapter Five Unfit for Childhood
• Chapter Six The Exodus of Paris
• Chapter Seven Dining with Mad Cow
• Chapter Eight Rinsing Sanity Back into Her Life
• Chapter Nine The Day of Our Father’s Rage
• Chapter Ten Longing for France Again
• Chapter Eleven Memories of Time’s Past
• Chapter Twelve Setting the Nightmares Free
• Chapter Thirteen The Silent War
• Chapter Fourteen Searching Through the Annals of Time
• Chapter Fifteen A Close Encounter
• Chapter Sixteen The Heart of A Woman
• Chapter Seventeen Confronting the Past
• Chapter Eighteen Restless as a Devil in Holy Water
• Chapter Nineteen Filthy Refugee
• Chapter Twenty A Return to the Exodus
• Chapter Twenty-One The Mysteries Are Resolved … or Are They?
• Chapter Twenty-Two Jules’s Past Comes to Light
• Chapter Twenty-Three A Second Visit with Marie
• Chapter Twenty-Four A Final Cup of Café
• Acknowledgments
• Reader’s Guide
• About the Author