Family: a novel
Author: Cooper, J. California
A slave mother, distraught that her children, sired by her master, might be
sold away from her, attempts to poison them all.
Doubleday, copyright 1991, 231p.
School Library Journal Review: YA-- This affecting historical novel, set in the pre-Civil War South, is narrated by a slave named Clora. She describes the life she and her mother share, her mother's suicide, her own unsuccessful attempt to kill her children, and the successful taking of her own life to escape mistreatment by her masters. After her death, Clora follows her children's lives in spirit form (interestingly depicted on the cover). The treatment of the slaves is heart-wrenching. Although vivid details make readers identify with the characters and feel their pain, Cooper's writing skill will draw them into the story, despite knowing in advance that it will hurt. While the generous use of white space on each page gives the book a juvenile appearance, the format, emotional tone, and use of dialect make it more appropriate for more mature YAs. An excellent book about slave life in the pre- and post- Civil War era.--Jacqueline J. Craig, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Publishers Weekly Review: In this beautifuly textured first novel by the author of the acclaimed short story collection Homemade Love , the history of one slave family becomes symbolic for all slaves and slaveholders. Clora, the granddaughter of a slave and a slaveholder, refuses to accept her life as chattel and, as did her mother, escapes slavery by committing suicide. She had tried to poison her children first, but they survive and Clora's spirit narrates their story, beginning with her daughter Always. Although her siblings pass for white to escape, dark Always endures the misery of slavery including frequent rape by the slave owner. Stealing his gold to save for anticipated freedom, she risks her life to learn how to read. When she and his wife give birth to sons at the same time, Always switches the babies, of like complexion. Her son grows up in freedom, while she raises the other as a slave--a masterful metaphor for the psychological bondage that slavery imposed on slave masters. Both young men survive the Civil War, and Always lives to see them prosper after emancipation. However, as Clora narrates, racism replaces slavery and humankind continues to suffer from its divisions. With power and grace, Cooper weaves the dialect, style and myths of the South into a portrait of the hell that was slavery. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate; author tour. (Jan.)
Library Journal Review: Cooper adopts an unorthodox perspective in this tale of one family's suffering under slavery. Typical of pre-Civil War times, the female slaves in this novel were sexually abused by the master of the land, often bearing him children who were later taken away and sold. The women went through life not knowing what had become of their offspring or experiencing a loving male/female relationship. Such is the lot of this book's protagonist. Early in Cooper's story, the young mother attempts to poison herself and her children. She dies but her children survive. The novel then describes in painful detail the poor soul's oversight of her children from beyond the grave. Although most of them land on their feet eventually, until that point their interrelated stories are wrenching. Cooper writes in dialect but occasionally slips into standard English, which can be disconcerting. Nevertheless, recommended for public libraries.-- Kimberly G. Allen, National Assn. of Home Builders Lib., Washington, D.C.
Kirkus Reviews Cooper's first novel, about an African-American family in and
out of slavery, shares the strengths and weaknesses of her story collections
(A Piece of Mine, 1984; Homemade Love, 1986; Some Soul to Keep, 1987): the charm
of her direct, colloquial voice usually outweighs the predictability of events
and sentiments. Narrator Chlora suffers the slavery horror of bearing children
for the white master and seeing them hated by the jealous mistress, sold away
or, in their turn, raped. Like her mother and grandmother, Chlora commits suicide,
poisoning herself and her four remaining children who, however, survive. Chlora's
spirit begs God to let her stay to watch over them. "God didn't say nothin'
to me. . .The devil didn't say nothin' either, thank God," but Chlora's
consciousness remains on earth and observes her children as they struggle for
love, education, dignity, and freedom. Daughter Always builds up her master's
plantation and contrives to switch her light-skinned baby with that of her new
mistress; son Sun escapes north with the help of his half-sister, the Master's
legitimate daughter; Peach is bought by a Scotsman, who takes her back to Europe
and marries her; baby Plum meets a gruesome death trying to stay with Always,
who's been sold. By the end, Chlora realizes her blood flows in people of different
races and nations and concludes that family is the human family ("God said
so!"). Simple and direct as a folk tale: an undeveloped but engaging read.
(Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1990)
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Future has a past, The: stories
Author: Cooper, J. California
Ordinary women search for meaning, love, and what is truly important in their
lives in a collection of short fiction that includes the story of a single mother
who ignores chances to find her own happiness while devoting herself to her
selfish children.
New York: Doubleday, copyright 2000, 265 p.
"Let us think of the future as a house we are building. A brick and a plank a day," Cooper writes in the introduction. Her stories recount the lives of women, young, middle age, and old. Maisha watches with envy and condemnation as her girlhood friend, the beautiful Lorene, sets off for a glamorous though loveless and rootless life in the cities, while Maisha leads a quiet but fulfilling life as housewife and mother. Luella was told she was ugly by a disappointed mother, who wanted to spare her child the pain of taking a chance on love. When Luella takes that chance with a con man, he abandons her; but she stumbles onto real love and is too apprehensive to realize it at first. Vinnie sacrificed her youth for her children after her husband abandoned her. She nearly loses an opportunity for love, until she's awakened by a friend's sudden good fortune. Cooper brings her deceptively simple storytelling style to this rich collection of stories about ordinary women living day to day, looking for love, accumulating sorrows and regrets, and searching for meaning.
(Reviewed October 15, 2000) -- Vanessa Bush
Publishers Weekly Review: African-American women struggling to make something of their smalltown lives inspire novelist and short story writer Cooper's (Homemade Love; A Piece of Mine) sixth collection of four down-home tales, told with wisdom and gentle humor. Navigating poverty, unwanted pregnancy, single motherhood and inexperience, all Cooper's heroines triumph, to lesser and greater degrees, finding "real love" despite being surrounded by "no good men." "Filet of Soul," a novella-length story, features Sedalia, a poor girl who can't afford to go to her high school prom. Enchanted when her crush leaves the party to dance with her on the school lawn, she responds to his overtures. The result is Sedalia's first and last sexual encounter, which leaves her pregnant and twice as poor as before. To protect her daughter from making the same mistake, Sedalia raises Luella to think she's unlovable and ugly. Not surprisingly, her efforts backfire. In "The Eagle Flies," single mother Vinnie works herself to the bone to care for her two ungrateful children, then enjoys the courtship of a man who encourages her to look out for herself; in "A Shooting Star," sensible Maisha meditates on the fate of her promiscuous friend, Lorene. Old-fashioned simplicity, common sense and colorful language make the potentially preachy aspects of these stories quaintly charming. Cooper occasionally forgets her vernacular and slips into more scholarly speech: one minute the narrators are saying "Humph, honey!" and calling each other "Sister-woman" and in the next they reference Dali and take "umbrage." Still, long comfortably established in the affections of her readers--and critically well regarded, too--Cooper continues to serve up stories as satisfying and heartwarming as homemade apple pie, and which should prove, with careful handling, just as popular. Author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal Review: Cooper's talent for storytelling shines in her new collection of four stories about life in a small town. We have all met at least one of Cooper's characters: Lorene, whose sexual appetites lead to tragedy; Luella, who finds true love in the midst of loneliness and despair; Vinnie, forced to choose between her children and her man, who decides to live for herself; Mr. Summer, willing to wait years to claim the love of the mother of his sons; and many more endearing characters who love life, work hard, tend their gardens, and try to get by on what little money they have. Reading each piece is like listening to family stories at the kitchen table, full of gossip, commonsense wisdom, and universal truths. Cooper's down-to-earth style has won her a devoted following and many awards (e.g., the National Book Award in 1989 for Homemade Love), and this collection will be well received by her fans. Readers of Oprah's books will enjoy these stories as well; don't be surprised if it becomes a future selection. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Ellen Flexman, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews A sixth collection from Cooper (The Wake of the Wind, 1998,
etc.), brimming over with all her usual upbeat insights, humor, and down-home
takes on life and living: a mix that has just enough vinegar to avoid seeming
too saccharine or facile.
The four stories here all explore, some more effectively than others, the theme
of the inescapable indivisibility of the past and the future in people's lives,
futures that, Cooper notes, are built like houses, "a brick or plank a
day." In the first and least successful piece, "A Shooting Star"—the
tone is more preachy, the moral more pointed—a young woman, now married
to her high school sweetheart and leading a virtuous life, tells how the free
and easy ways with men of her beautiful and wayward friend Lorene, whom she's
known and often envied since childhood, had gruesome repercussions. The "A
Fillet of Soul" is a love story with a twist, as Luella, a lonely young
woman abandoned by her ne'er do well suitor in a strange city without money,
is advised to sell her favors in order to pay her debts—a fate she manages
to escape when she at last finds true romance. Meanwhile, Vinnie, an overworked
and financially struggling single mother in "The Eagle Flies" (the
best story here), watches an eagle with a wounded wing fly regularly over her
house, and somehow finds the courage to stand up to her grasping, selfish children
and fall in love again. And in "The Lost and the Found," an old woman,
Mrs. Everly, observing that the biggest fools are the ones who think they're
having fun making fools of everyone else, recalls a young woman by the name
of Irene who turned the tables on her lover Cool, a sweet-talker who had no
intention of settling down—yet.
Clear-eyed takes on women's lives that offer some redeeming balm.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2000)
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Past has a future, The
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038549680X
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Homemade love
Author: Cooper, J. California
Offers a collection of stories full of wonder at the mystery of life, the hardness
of fate, and the whimsical humor the Lord indulges in
St. Martin's Press, copyright 1986, 175 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: The stories in this second collection from the author of A Piece of Mine are all about love. About sex and family too, and life when it is lived with wonder and relish. Told in first-person, in a lively, unobtrusive black dialect, these tales, set in both country and city, are lit with wisdom and high-spirited humor. In "Happiness Does Not Come in Colors," a black activist widowed in the '60s gradually allows herself to become attached to a white man, while a younger black woman finds that activism has expanded her life in surprising ways. In "The Magic Strength of Need," an ambitious girl of exceptional ugliness builds an empire of beauty products and services, is finally wooed by the longed-for rich man and learns to value the love of a constant friend. "Spooks" is a sexual comedy in which two men enjoy the favors of a recent widow whose "husband" returns to her each night. Cooper is overfond of aphoristic commentary and exclamation marks, and her narrators may have similar-sounding voices, but she tells stories that move and dance about people who pop off the page to lodge themselves firmly in the reader's affection. (August 29)
Library Journal Review: Cooper's second volume of short stories (her first was A Piece of Mine , LJ 12/84) concerns black women and men, parents and children, as they struggle and love. Told in a folksy first-person voice, these stories nearly all have happy endings. Contrasts abound: In ``Living,'' a middle-aged man leaves his wife and piece of land to try city life, and after three days and four hospitalizations crawls gratefully back home. ``The Watcher'' is the neighborhood snoop, so intent on everyone else's business that she does not see that her own son is on smack. The overabundance of exclamation points and the sameness of style do get a little tiresome, but the stories are saved from preachiness by the wry and somewhat ingenuous tone. This would be an excellent addition to collections serving black young adult readers. Janet Boyarin Blundell, M.L.S., Brookdale Community Coll., Lincroft, N.J.
Kirkus Reviews More funny/sad cautionary tales--modern folk-tales, really--about
small-town blacks, by the author of 17 plays and a previous collection of short
stories, A Piece of Mine (1984). The narrators of these 13 pieces (different
narrators, though their voices are nearly interchangeable) speak of the common
wisdom of everyday life in glowing terms: "All I know is there ain't nothin
like love. Love and happiness! That's a fact, and you can blive that,"
but many of the characters never get close to realizing that happiness lies
(as the title indicates) at home. "You've got to have some kind of good
sense. Common sense," cries the narrator of "The Magic Strength of
Need." She's telling the story of her friend Burlee, an ugly girl who grows
up swearing she's going to marry a rich man. She becomes a success in business,
but keeps spurning the advances of Winston, the man who really loves her, just
because he's not rich. But a one-night stand with a truly wealthy man (who nearly
rapes her) brings her back to Winston--and home. Home is also the subject of
"Without Love," where Geneva, a proper lady who worked hard all her
life for a family and a lovely house, tells the story of her wild friend Totsy,
who drank and slept around all her life and now has nowhere to go in her old
age. There's a kind of Aesopian simplicity here that transcends the basic clichÉ.
And the young narrator of "Happiness Does Not Come In Colors" watches
an older woman she's admired marry a white man, and she herself decides that
a so-called "square" who's been wooing her isn't half-bad. Cooper
is humorous, wise, self-deprecating, and always expressive, right down to her
cheerful overuse of exclamation points. The ordinariness of her subject matter
works well for her; her stories are about simple truths told with a great energy
that makes them shine.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1986)
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Home made love
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0312388950 : Hardcover
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New York: Doubleday, 1994, 351 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: American Book Award-winner Cooper (for the short-story collection Homemade Love) sets her second novel (after Family) in Yoville, a small legal township outside New York City. There, this preachy intergenerational saga traces the intersecting lives of two families of wealthy white landowners, the Krupts and the Befoes, and the descendants of Josephus Josephus, a former slave who's the lover of the perpetually drunk Krupt matriarch, Victoria. The birth of a fair-skinned daughter, Yinyang, from this temporary union motivates Josephus to plan his escape to a better life by stashing away much of the Krupts' wealth while poisoning them. Cooper's highly moralistic tale centers around the families of Yinyang and her half-sister, Ruth (born of an African American mother), as they fumble through bursts of prosperity and poverty. In the author's explicitly Christian universe, fast money corrupts, so it's inevitable that tragedy will ensue once Ruth and her lover happen upon Josephus's hidden treasure. Meanwhile, in the desperate Befoe household, controlling an internationally powerful empire only obscures satisfaction as greed and ambition lead to incest, retardation and soullessness. Though Cooper's storytelling is at times effective, her pietistic tone and emphasis on Satan's complicity in acts of evil (which the characters consider "satisfaction") may alienate less religiously inclined readers. Author tour. (Oct.)
Library Journal Review: Cooper's newest work may provoke strong emotions but not much sympathy for the often misguided townspeople of Yoville, where Josephus, a freed slave, schemes to gain money and seek opportunities for himself and his daughter, Yinyang. Readers may be disgusted by the unbelievable display of greed, best exemplified by Carlene-the queen of avarice-or bored by the sometimes irritatingly didactic tone. On the other hand, they will relish Cooper's credible rendition of Southern speech patterns, for which she has been heartily praised. Although readers "in search of satisfaction" may not find it here, they should still scrutinize this award-winning author's earlier works, including, most recently, The Matter Is Life (LJ 6/1/91) and Family (LJ 12/90).-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia
Kirkus Reviews Cooper (The Matter Is Life, 1991, etc.) relates this meandering
tale of two half-sisters in a folksy, dialect-strewn voice that is moralistic
-- and also pretty dull. In the small town of Yoville, a newly emancipated slave
named Josephus Josephus chooses to remain for a spell on the plantation of his
former masters, the Krupts, while he plans his next move. While there, he courts
a neighboring woman, who then marries a different man but gives birth to Ruth,
who Josephus is convinced is his daughter: "He just watched the child as
she grew for signs that she might be his. He saw them and knew she was his child."
Shortly afterward, the disgusting, drunken Mrs. Krupt commands Josephus to have
sex with her and becomes pregnant, eventually giving birth to a daughter named
Yinyang. After Yinyang discovers her mother's hidden stash of gold, Josephus
steals it and buries half in the ground, then Josephus and Yinyang leave together
and he dies shortly afterward, but not before giving her some gold coins. Back
in Yoville, Ruth discovers the buried treasure, marries the love of her life,
and starts having children. Meanwhile, after a stint in New Orleans living with
a woman who showers her with gifts and "loans" her to a priest, grown-up
Yinyang returns to Yoville. The story flips back and forth between Ruth and
Yinyang (and, after Ruth's death, between her daughter Hosanna and Yinyang)
with dizzying speed, as if to force home the good girl/bad girl dichotomy. More
irritating are the constant references to Satan's feelings about things ("Satan
smiled in amusement. 'I will be there with some suggestions to make, little
one.' ") and the authorial instructions on clean living ("You just
watch those Ten Commandments and watch out for people who do not respect and
try to do them"). Imitative of but in no way equal to Zora Neale Hurston.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1994)
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Matter is life, The: stories
Author: Cooper, J. California
Collects a set of tales of simple people and events that are rich, lyrical,
humorous, ironic, and full of wonder at life's mysteries
Doubleday, copyright 1991, 227p.
Library Journal Review: The first of eight stories in this collection focuses
on a funeral but affirms life. Almost every speech uttered by the 90-year-old
narrator contains the words, ``I ain't ready.'' Luxuriating in the love of her
extensive family, she tells God and all the world that she is not ready to die.
Later stories deal with poverty, abusive husbands, drug addiction, and prostitution,
but even these grim situations yield nurturing down-home wisdom. Most of Cooper's
first-person narrators are shrewd black women, and on occasion the stories suffer
from sameness in plots, themes, and characters. Usually, however, they are touching
without falling into sentimentality and totally honest without becoming crude.--
Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
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Piece of mine, A
Author: Cooper, J. California
Other Contributors: Walker, Alice, 1944-
Wild Trees Press, copyright 1984, 124p.
Kirkus Reviews Twelve stories of man/woman troubles in a black, small-town setting--nearly
all of them narrated, in a folksy/anecdotal style, by older-and-wiser black
women. Most of the men are abusive, most of the women are victims. . . at least
at first. In "$100 and Nothing!" an under-appreciated wife takes posthumous
revenge on her no-good husband. Other rotten men get their comeuppance in assorted
ways: a jealous (but philandering) husband tries to kill his unfaithful wife,
accidentally killing his tacky mistress instead; another leech of a man dies
by hanging ("Me, I believe it was an accident. . .he was either trying
to fix it so Della would catch him in time to stop him and realize she loved
him, or he was fixin it for her"); middle-aged men are abandoned by their
newly liberated spouses. In a few cases the women never get revenge or better
men or freedom: "Loved to Death" is a mawkish lament for a woman driven
to fatal alcoholism by cruel men; "Sins Leave Scars" chronicles the
life of an abused girl who grows up unable to love. And the didactic, platitudinous
strain that runs through almost all of Cooper's stories is especially emphatic
in "Color Me Real"--about a part-black woman who suffers from the
prejudices of both white and black men. . .until she finds true love with a
childhood playmate. ("She was neither white nor black now. She was a woman,
his woman. It lasted til death did them part, leaving beautiful brown children
on the beautiful brown earth.") Still, if there's little variety in this
collection, and little shape or depth to Cooper's monologues, there's plenty
of energy, personality, and humor--all of which (along with the sponsorship
of Alice Walker) should help to attract a black/feminist audience.
(Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1984)
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• TID: 021529
Some love, some pain, sometime
J. California Cooper
Author: Cooper, J. California
Ten stories on black women sorting out their lives. In Yellow House Road, a
mother with 13 children finally leaves her no-good husband and experiences the
thrill of having made the right choice, while Sure is a Shame, is on sisters
who made the wrong choice.
New York: Doubleday, c1995, 273 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: The heroines in Cooper's latest collection of lively, charming stories (after The Matter is Life) reaffirm the centrality of romantic, committed relationships in the lives of many African American women. Cooper, whose 1989 collection, Homemade Love won the American Book Award, offers an array of fairy tales in which downtrodden Cinderella types eventually win their Prince Charmings. Though these women possess a certain innocence, both of happiness and of passion, they fall outside the conventional ingenue mold, often being middle-aged or older. The 10 stories here generally chronicle their characters' efforts to resurrect their lives after suffering harsh losses. Although the quest for a suitable husband dominates, these women also seek control over their destinies. They change their names, start pampering themselves in small ways and, through hard labor, achieve financial independence. The stories unfold in various American cities during the present day, but exact settings are left vague. Cooper's spirited use of the first person makes every tale engaging, even if the uniformity of voice makes the narrators largely indistinguishable. With thematic concerns tending to take precedence over technique, the author unabashedly indulges our romantic sensibilities. In these tales, a good man may be hard to find--but he is definitely worth both the search and the wait. Author tour. (Oct.)
Library Journal Review: Strongly, deliberately reminiscent of conversations over backyard fences, Cooper's genial, heartful new stories feature poor to middle-class black women reflecting on friends and neighbors much like themselves. The signature first-person monologs tell of women's perseverance in the face of economic and emotional hardship, both usually caused by fickle, selfish men, and of the recurrent--and sometimes fruitful--search for real love. A consistently natural vernacular enlivens these tales; readers familiar with black talk or with Cooper's other works, e.g., In Search of Satisfaction (LJ 9/1/94), will enjoy the engaging, comfortable rhythms and speech patterns. That most of these stories are little differentiated from one another in either form or content may frustrate nonfans, but most public libraries should acquire this winning if repetitive collection by a well-regarded author.--Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio
Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Ten openly celebratory new stories, in
a fifth collection, from the prolific Cooper (In Search of Satisfaction, 1994,
etc.). With her characteristic wit and aplomb--and effortless colloquial style--the
author leads her high-spirited, modern-day heroines on their hard (but usually
rewarding) life's journeys. Women all need the same thing, Cooper asserts time
and again: to strike a critical balance between finding love and finding--and
keeping--themselves. And though these protagonists make mistakes and fall often
into traps set for women since the beginning of time, they're eventually offered
redemption and indeed happiness by dint of their own learned wisdom. "Femme
Fatale" plays with the traditional meaning of that phrase as Darlin' Roscoe's
version of Everywoman undergoes a radical transformation for the better. In
"The Way It Is," Melody learns after losing the love of her life that
it's more-than-OK to pass up Mr. So-So even if it means holding out all alone
for Mr. Right. The inspirational "Yellow House Road" features MLee
(so named by a mother who had 13 children and no time to learn to spell), who
leaves her lazy husband to discover what she wants out of life--and learns that
just by trying she "can DO things by herself, for herself." But Cooper
is no full-fledged Pollyanna: "Sure Is a Shame" concerns Inez and
her sorry sister Gartha, two women who made bad choices and couldn't (or wouldn't)
escape them; "A Will and a Way" has a tragic loss at its center, one
not adequately compensated for by its unsatisfying end. Overall, though, the
cumulative experiences of these invincible, irrepressible women create an unforgettable,
uplifting collection. Funny, real, warm, and right on the money: stories from
a gifted author that help to do womankind proud.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1995)
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Some people, some other place
J. California Cooper
Author: Cooper, J. California
A multigenerational saga chronicles the intertwined lives of the multi-ethnic
residents of Dream Street in a town called Place, following one family from
the Deep South of 1895, to rural Oklahoma and the industrial Midwest.
New York: Doubleday, 2004, 368 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: An unborn child narrates Cooper's earthy fourth novel,
which, through a minute exploration of the lives and loves of the residents
of Dream Street in the town of Place, aims to unveil the vastness of human experience.
At the heart of the novel is the narrator's future mother, Eula Too. Born to
a poor African-American family in a small town outside of Chicago, Eula Too
spent her early years caring for her numerous younger siblings, finding time
to sneak away for lessons with a beloved teacher and letting an impotent chauffeur
touch her for spending money. When she eventually flees home, hoping for a better
life in Depression-era Chicago, she is raped and abandoned, only to be discovered
by the rich owner of a high-class brothel. Madame LaFon takes Eula Too in, not
as a future prostitute but as a friend. The years pass and Eula Too, now a loving,
moral young woman, accompanies Madame to her hometown of Place, where she endeavors
to turn the neighborhood into a haven of love and goodwill. A certain didacticism—about
politics, rich-poor relations and the importance of morality—gives the
tale added depth, if also a kind of heavy-handedness. Cooper's (The Wake of
the Wind) simple, plain writing and unequivocal regard for all people stand
out in a novel scattered in narrative but united in its humanity. Agent, Anna
Ghosh. (Oct.)
— Staff (Reviewed September 13, 2004) (Publishers Weekly, vol 251, issue
37, p57)
Library Journal Review: The voice of a Spirit not yet born into the world but with a few things to teach us about life, hope, and love narrates Cooper's fourth novel (after The Wake of the Wind). In this combination of novel and fable, the author notes that she envisioned a locale named Dream Street with a row of houses that held histories within their walls. Eula, a gentle yet courageous black woman, leads the reader to these houses and to a diverse group of residents whose lives intertwine under Eula's guidance. The first half is somewhat arduous in its detail of the long path that brings Eula to Dream Street. Once she arrives, however, the pace quickens. Using the recurring voice of the Spirit, Cooper seems to weave in her own beliefs as well as her hopes for a kinder, more universal spirituality. Cooper could well be called "The Grandma Moses of American Letters" in that her relatively simple, unvarnished style has a unique and captivating charm that clearly comes from the heart. Recommended for all fiction collections.—Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty. (Reviewed September 15, 2004) (Library Journal, vol 129, issue 15, p48)
Kirkus Reviews A third novel from playwright and storywriter Cooper (The Future Has a Past, 2000, etc.) follows five generations of African-Americans from the Deep South of the Civil War to a Chicago suburb in the 20th century.
You get a feel for the outline of the story here early on, when the narrator tells you that her tale is about the good people who live in a neighborhood called Dream Street in a town called Place. The narrator herself speaks in a tone that falls somewhere between Diogenes and Ecclesiastes, relating the vanities of those who manage to make their way in the world and the travails of those who don't. Among the latter are some of the descendants of an ex-slave named Eula, who, in the late 19th century, manages to leave the South and make her way north to Oklahoma. Her children work as sharecroppers at first, and their children move farther north with each generation until they reach Illinois. In the lean years of the Depression, Eula's granddaughter, Eula Too, sets out for Chicago, but she's raped, beaten, and left for dead along the way. She's rescued by a high-class bawd named Madame LaFon and given a job and a place to live in Madame's Chicago brothel. Madame grows to love Eula Too and provides her with a good education. Madame grew up in the woebegone little town of Place, in a dreary little house on Dream Street. Her dying mother lives there still, and Madame looks after her with Eula Too's help. There are all kinds of people living on Dream Street, including the Chinese immigrant Ha and the Jewish refugee Maureen Iris, both of whom (like Eula Too) had to struggle against great odds to get there.
Stilted prose combines with creaky allegory in a very odd family saga—a
mix, perhaps, of Mister Rogers, Roots, and The Good Earth.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2004)
Features about this author or title:
1. Author Read-Alike - J. California Cooper
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1. Author Read-Alike - Alex Haley
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1. Web Site for J. California Cooper : A brief biography of the author and reading
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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0385496826
0385496834 : Paperback
Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20050420
• TID: 132894
Some soul to keep
Author: Cooper, J. California
St. Martin's Press, 1987, 211p.
Booklist Review: Like Cooper's previous works, this new collection of stories
features feisty, determined women whose lifelong struggles for dignity lead
to ultimate triumph in spite of adverse circumstances. In "Sisters of the
Rain," Superior is raised in poverty but inherits a love of learning from
her mother. She manages to send her own children to college without much help
from her faithless and then bedridden husband. In "Red-Winged Blackbirds,"
the narrator's other and father are killed by the KKK; she becomes a successful
businesswoman and eventually finds a surrogate family. In "About Love and
Money," Bessy goes to work for a wealthy dentist as a maid, becomes mistress
of the house, and discovers that both love and money have their special comforts.
A gentle humor permeates these tales and saves them form sentimentality. While
the narrative voice is undifferentiated and the women all seem the same, the
stories remain a pleasure to read because of their folktale quality. MEQ. [OCLC]
87-4414 --
Publishers Weekly Review: The five long stories in this volume radiate the same energy that readers of Cooper's A Piece of Mine and Homemade Love will expect. Love between parents and children, between sisters, friends, women and men, are all illuminated in the author's sprightly vernacular prose. Each tale is narrated by a spirited black woman who, by perseverance and innate good faith, has triumphed over the deprivationssometimes emotional and always materialof her childhood. Cooper has a sharp eye for detail and her characters are distinct in their circumstancessome had loving families, some cruel, one is blind and abandonedbut all follow the same path to happiness and satisfaction, gamely choosing love over security, revenge or dependence. Ultimately, no matter how admirable and lively these stories are individually, the sameness of their tone and structure (the tales are all retrospective and chronological) defuses the impact of the volume as a whole. (October 19)
Kirkus Reviews Cooper's third collection of modern folk tales--nearly all of
them narrated in a pungent, good-natured, and colloquial style. As in Homemade
Love (1986), the message here is homey and simple: goodness wins out in the
end, and love conquers all. The abandoned little orphan girl in "Sisters
of the Rain," the blind unwed mother in "Feeling for Life" (whose
social worker says she is "blind, black, and broke!"), the former
maid turned landlady in "About Love and Money," and the middle-aged,
deserted wife in "The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)" all overcome
hostile environments, uncaring relations, and personal disabilities because
they are hard-working, determined people whose capacity for love turns conditions
in their favor. "Sometimes you got to have the rain in order to get to
the rainbow," says the narrator of "Sisters of the Rain," who's
telling the story of Superior, a quiet girl who works as a maid while her friend
Jewel gallivants around with other women's husbands, wears fine clothes, and
has fun. Nevertheless, it is Superior who has the last laugh--despite a crippled,
cheating husband, four children to raise, and a manic-depressive employer, she
is the one who ends up with successful, loving children, a beautiful house filled
with things her children buy for her, and lots of love, while Jewel dies embittered
and alone. Cooper is interested in the simple truths of simple people, and the
pithy insights, energetic colloquial language, and sheer good nature expressed
in these stories carry the reader willingly with her.
(Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1987)
Features about this author or title:
1. Author Read-Alike - J. California Cooper
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1. Web Site for J. California Cooper : A brief biography of the author and reading
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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0312193378 : Paperback
0312006845 : Hardcover
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 021530
Wake of the wind
Author: Cooper, J. California
When the slaves' emancipation reaches Texas, a Black woman named Lifee and her
family rely on their extraordinary resilience and ingenuity to face the reverberations
of slavery and stake out a farm and a home of their own
New York: Doubleday, copyright 1998, 373 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: Cooper's disappointing third novel (after Family)
frustrates readers with a good premise poorly executed. Mordecai and Lifee meet
as slaves on a plantation in post-Civil War Texas. Forced to marry by their
master before they even know each other, they fall in love just as emancipation
is declared, and head east with several other newly freed companions to look
for a safe place to live. Cooper conveys the mixture of hope, fear and confusion
as hungry and footsore former slaves move across the country. Mor and Lifee
find work at a ruined plantation in Georgia and begin a family; and in time,
the owner secretly sells her property to them. The tightly knit clan of former
slaves prospers, but when lynchings in the area become frequent, they are forced
to leave. Eventually they settle on an abandoned farm, where they survive economic
depression and other troubles. When tragedy ensues, the next generation must
assume responsibility for preserving the family. Though Cooper's research about
the troubled historical era provides good details, her characters are mainly
two-dimensional stereotypes. The blacks are good, with pure hearts; the whites
(with one exception) are duplicitous. Moreover, the prose is wooden and preachy,
lacking grace or nuance. This earnest saga of freed slaves aspiring to new lives
in the Reconstruction South is commendable in intent but pedestrian in execution.
(Sept.)
Features about this author or title:
1. Author Read-Alike - J. California Cooper
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Other titles associated with this book:
Wind's wake., The
ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0385487045
Credits:
• Hennepin County Public Library
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 021531
Wild stars seeking midnight suns
J. California Cooper
Author: Cooper, J. California
A collection of short fiction focuses on the universal themes of love, hope,
family, and home in such tales as "As Time Goes By," "The Eye
of the Beholder," and "Catch a Falling Heart."
New York: Doubleday, 2006, 272 p.
Publishers Weekly Review: An acclaimed novelist (Some People, Some Other Place), playwright (Strangers) and short story writer (Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime), Cooper checks in with a collection of stories that shine a spotlight on the lives of invisible women. Her characters are confined, whether by poverty and degradation, or by narcissism and the trappings of success, and they long for satisfaction and deliverance. In "In the Eye of the Beholder," Lily Bea, an ugly duckling, grows up into a graceful woman with an innate love of beauty that may not do her much good, while Harriet, a damaged hotel proprietress in "Catch a Falling Heart," struggles toward a better life using whatever or whoever is at hand. Fulfillment, when it happens, comes in the trappings of a good man or a home of their own and the economic freedom it signifies. Alcoholism, AIDS, licentiousness and loneliness contend with education, a trust in God and other simple remedies that are difficult to apply. Cooper's narrators are storytellers who watch from the margins of life, who might be seen at first as meddlers, but become recognizable as a small army of empathic souls, who struggle toward self-awareness, honest observation and forging connections (Apr.) --Staff (Reviewed March 20, 2006) (Publishers Weekly, vol 253, issue 12, p38)
Library Journal Review: Cooper, winner of the 1989 American Book Award for Homemade Love, has put together a collection of short stories around the theme of searching, and this universal pursuit???whatever the desired object???is what makes this collection work in the end. These stories have their problems???the narrators get rather preachy, and the conversations are often stilted. But the changes in characters like Lily Bea (???The Eye of the Beholder???), a meek little girl who becomes a confident businesswoman, and Harriet (???Catch a Falling Heart???), a handicapped hotel owner who becomes a happily married woman, will resonate with the reader. Names are often sly and humorous depictions of characters themselves, like Futila Ways in ???As Time Goes By??? or Mr. Bsurd in ???Just-Life Politics.??? Cooper's voice is that of a folksy storyteller, and the loves and mistakes of all the characters are those of real people, which is finally what really makes the stories successful. Recommended for medium to large libraries.???Amy Ford, St. Mary's Cty. Lib., Lexington Park, MD --Amy Ford (Reviewed March 15, 2006) (Library Journal, vol 131, issue 5, p65)
Kirkus Reviews Intimately told contemporary morality tales about the search for love and material success.
Through the voice of her engaging unnamed narrator—a wry, pretty much all-knowing observer who is mostly content to sit in the background and watch foolishness reach its inevitable conclusion—Cooper (Some People, Some Other Place, 2004, etc.) presents nine stories about young black women: Some make unfortunate choices; some make shrewd decisions; some read books and excel at school; some daydream of dreamboats with whom they sail away to the land of milk and honey. In all the tales, character is destiny, and the most fearsome enemy (vanity, greed, sloth) is found within. In "The Eye of the Beholder," Lily Bea, a homely child with a bright spirit, is married off by her selfish mama to a nasty old man who owns a dry-cleaning business; only her love of books saves her from a life of slavish work and emotional abuse. Several stories follow a fabulist's schema: In "As Time Goes By," hard-working Willa Ways earns a Ph.D. and achieves acclaim in a distinguished career; her lazy sister, Futila Ways, uses her good looks to snare a husband, but winds up in a loveless marriage and an empty life. Other tales skewer the narcissism of successful young professionals who think so highly of themselves that they let love pass them by. What unifies and deepens these stories is the impish, ever-forgiving but gently judgmental narrator who doesn't hold herself above the all-too-human impulse to share some really good gossip, as in "The Party," a story about an evening at a nightclub that turns into an after-hours orgy. The morning after, the narrator winds up treating the participants at the family clinic where she works, doling out penicillin because someone reported a case of STD.
Warm-hearted, earthy and sly. As enjoyable as a favorite relative who has all
the dirt on the other family members in the room.
(Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2006)
Features about this author or title:
1. Author Read-Alike - J. California Cooper
Author Web Sites:
1. Web Site for J. California Cooper : A brief biography of the author and reading
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ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0385511337
1400075688 : Paperback
Credits:
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
• Baker & Taylor
• Booklist, published by the American Library Association
• Publishers Weekly, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Library Journal, A Reed Elsevier Business Information Publication
• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20060520
• TID: 143655