Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 4:07 a.m.
Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at [email protected] or (702) 259-4082.
WEEKEND EDITION
September 18 - 19, 2004
In the face of devastating news about her youngest daughter, Jacqueline Annette Sue did the only things she could think of to help:
Pray and write.
Her prayers continue. But her book, "Cornbread and Dim Sum: Memoir of a Heart Glow Romance," has been published, with all proceeds going to the Sarcoma Foundation of America. Sue's 35-year-old daughter Candace was diagnosed with the disease last November.
"I decided then (the book) was not just another project," Sue said during an interview Monday from her Corte Madera, Calif., home.
The book chronicles the challenges Sue, who is black, and her husband Frank, who is Chinese, faced in a marriage that has lasted 40 years. Unyielding devotion and cultural conflicts are revealed in memories Sue recalls on Candace's wedding day.
The book opens with a pointed anecdote about Sue's encounter with the wedding party's makeup artist. After mistaking Sue for a house servant, the makeup artist asks, "Your daughter is the bride? Is she adopted?"
From the depths of her ever-deepening hole, the woman tries to recover by calling the bride "an Asian version of Halle Berry," then asks, "How old was the bride when you married her father?"
"The bride," Sue replies, "is my natural daughter."
What follows is a well-woven series of incidents showing how racial biases creep quietly into everyday situations. She tells of their first date in 1963. They went to a drive-in burger joint after both finished the swing shift at the San Francisco Post Office. The waitress who took their orders made someone else deliver their food.
In 283 fast-reading pages, Sue gives readers a great love story, an unusual perspective on the 1960s racial conflicts and a view into a type of interracial marriage that remains rare today. She also offers a glimpse of the U.S. Postal Service's struggles to accept women and minorities to its ranks.
"We're all in life together and somewhere along the line, we all touch each other," Sue said. "If we tap into that, there is nothing we can't do for the good."
Sue is now tapping into alliances she and her husband made before retiring from the U.S. Postal Service. Personal connections have helped enormously in promoting her book, which she self-published to raise more money.
"I published this with my new-car money," Sue said. "I do not like the amount of money you have to pay to put it in the stores. I can give all of that to find a cure."
Sue has book signings set though April 2005 in cities including New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Orlando, Fla.
She'll be in Las Vegas from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Friday at the West Las Vegas Cultural Arts Center, 970 W. Lake Mead Blvd.
Sue hopes her book will raise not only money but awareness for leiomyosarcoma (LSM), the rare form of cancer that affects four in 1 million people and her daughter.
"I look at how much money we raise and how few cures we find," Sue said. "And I don't have anything to sell but sarcoma and 'Cornbread and Dim Sum.' "
The hardback book costs $21.95. Buy it online at www.amazon.com, www.bn.com or www.jacquelinesue.com.
Actually, why not buy two?
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