A dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South.

The Wake of the Wind, J. California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families. Set in Texas in the waning years of the Civil War, the novel tells the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and the extended family they create from other slaves who are also looking for a home and a future, set out in search of a piece of land they can call their own. In the face of constant threats, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. Lifee and Mor pass their intelligence, determination, and talents along to their children, the next generation to surge forward. At once tragic and triumphant, this is an epic story that captures with extraordinary authenticity the most important struggle of the last hundred years.

J. California Cooper's irresistible collection of new stories explores the universal themes of romance, family, and the hopes that propel people's dreams.
In "As Time Goes By" a young woman singlemindedly pursues material wealth, only to suffer from an empty heart. "Catch a Falling Heart" tells of a slyly arranged marriage, and "The Eye of the Beholder" portrays a plain girl's search for love and her own brand of freedom. Wise, earthy and intimate, these stories are moving parables of the human need to seek some sort of satisfaction, just as a wild star seeks a midnight sun.

A fourth collection of stories by the award-winning author.

Beloved writer J. California Cooper has won a legion of loyal fans and much critical acclaim for her powerful storytelling gifts. In language both spare and direct yet wondrously lyrical, LIFE IS SHORT BUT WIDE is an irresistible story of family that proves no matter who you are or what you do, you are" "never too old to chase your dreams.
Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early twentieth century, Irene and Val fall in love in Wideland. While carving out a home for themselves, they also allow neighbors Bertha and Joseph to build a house and live on their land. The next generation brings two girls for Irene and Val, and a daughter for Bertha and Joseph. As the families cope with the hardships that come with changing times and fortunes, and people are born and pass away, the characters learn the importance of living one's life boldly and squeezing out every possible moment of joy.
Cooper brilliantly captures the cadences of the South and draws a picture of American life at once down-to-earth and heartwarming in this-as her wise narrator will tell you-"strange, sad, kind'a beautiful, life story." It is a story about love that leads to the ultimate realization that whoever you are, and whatever you do, life is short, but it is also wide.

"J. California Cooper returns with a sweeping novel about love and heartbreak, perseverance and luck, telling her tale with an insight and grace that reaffirms Alice Walker's words of praise for her previous works: "Her style is deceptively simple and direct and the vale of tears in which her characters reside is never so deep that a rich chuckle at a person's foolishness cannot be heard."
In her acclaimed novels and short stories, J. California Cooper has created moving portraits of people striving to make their way in a hard, often unjust world. Whether it explores the blatant racial and class biases of nineteenth-century America or the more subtle forms of discrimination that exist today, "It is the universality of her themes that has made Ms. Cooper's work popular," as the "Dallas Morning News has written.
"Some People, Some Other Place is Cooper's biggest, most far-reaching novel to date. A multigenerational tale, it is set in a town called "Place," on a street named "Dream Street." In the words of the novel's narrator, "the block surely had about it a feeling of long accumulation of history, of life, of many lives intertwined." As she chronicles the interlocking lives of the residents of Dream Street, Cooper places the stories of the individuals and their families within the wider context of America's social and economic history. We meet the narrator's great grandparents, who left the poverty of the Deep South in 1895 and made their way to a farm in Oklahoma; her grandparents, who continued the northward journey with their eyes on the promised jobs of the industrial Midwest but were forced to settle without reaching their goal; and her mother, who finishes thejourney and discovers that life at 903 Dream Street carries new burdens as well as rewards. The neighbors on the block are people of all colors, all striving to overcome personal troubles and disappointments, and all holding fast to their dreams of a better life.

From the beloved author of Family and A Piece of Mine comes a dazzling new collection of stories featuring ordinary women who discover that love sometimes comes when you least expect it.

Vinnie is an overworked and self-sacrificing single mother who gets a second chance at love and independence, in "The Eagle Flies." In "A Shooting Star" a happily married mother of two laments the fate of her beautiful friend Lorene, whose naivete about desire has deadly consequences. In "A Filet of Soul," Luella's luck soon changes when her mother leaves her a modest inheritance, but not as soon as she initially imagines. And in "The Lost and Found," Irene confronts her womanizing boyfriend with the one piece of information that will bring him to his knees. Bursting with earthy wisdom and humor, these warmly engaging tales are a testament to Cooper's gifts as a storyteller.

Critical Praise for J. California Cooper:

"Cooper's work reminds us of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston." -Alice Walker

"Cooper knows how to 'talk' her stories to us, as though each of them is told by a kindly and concerned friend. The sound of them is lovely, memorable, haunting." -- "San Francisco Chronicle"

"Gutsy and familiar...Cooper's power comes from sticking to her instinct, which is to tell a story, plain and simple." -- "The Washington Post"

"Ms. Cooper is as down-home as Zora Neale Hurston, thank you, and blooming into as skilled a storyteller. Cooper's characters are the folk heroes of black culture.... Tales of triumph that give you reason to keep reading." -- "Essence"

"These stories are jazzy, clubby, folksy, small towny, populist, perky, and if you don't like them, you must be in an absolutely unshakeable bad mood...." --Carolyn See, "Los Angeles Times"

"Both men and women are treated with such bemused love that these tales of passions gone astray are transformed into celebrations of life." -- "MS."