The Wake of the Wind: A Novel [Paperback]

J. California Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 28, 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Cooper has written her third novel and another wonderfully rich tale. Two good friends in Africa, Kola and Suwaibu, are taken from Africa and brought to America as slaves. The story of their great-great-great-grandchildren, Mordecai (Mor) and Lifee, reunites these friends' families through marriage. Mor and Lifee's life together is chronicled through their marriage, freedom from slavery, the birth of their children and grandchildren, and their deaths. Cooper has once again written a compelling story, reminiscent of The Children of Segu (1989) by Maryse Conde. All her fans will love this book. Lillian Lewis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1ST edition (December 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385487053
• ISBN-13: 978-0385487054
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J. California Cooper was honored as Black Playwright of the Year, and has received the American Book Award, the James Baldwin Writing Award, and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association. She lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A reader in Dallas, TX, January 25, 2000

By 

Janice Kinder - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wake of the Wind: A Novel (Paperback)

I am so glad for the opportunity to read this book. One reader commented that it was a disappointment because of its shallowness and simplicity, but many of us African Americans raised in the North graduated ignorant of the plight of our ancestors. The true horrors of slavery can never fully be told or comprehended, but more importantly, if truthfully told, would grieve our hearts beyond repair. I perceive Ms. Cooper understood this profoundly and travailed in her soul seeking a way to tell the story of our people that would "free our spirits, but not crush our souls." The pain of our ancestors' past is "without remedy," but the joy of a freed spirit is more valuable than pure gold. This is what Ms. Cooper's story accomplishes.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully woven tale of truth!, August 22, 2001

By 

Jamellah Ellis (Bowie, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Wake of the Wind: A Novel (Paperback)

I used to say that the most stirring book I had read was Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Well, after reading The Wake of the Wind, Zora's got good company. Very good company.

J. California Cooper does in this book what every writer should aspire to do in every piece that he or she writes: cause an emotional eruption. Many of the younger generation are tired of reading novels that are set in the slavery or post-antebellum periods. Please don't let your taste for contemporary tales cause you to miss out on this GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL.

The story of Mordecai and Lifee is a love story like no other. It is a story of truth and endurance because it has been tested by the worst of circumstances: a master's oppression; racial hatred; the stress of life. Yet through it all, they not only endure--they succeed. They thrive. They fight evil with good and prevail. They remind us why we're here and what we must never take for granted. They show us that our lives are about so much more than us, and that we really have no basis to complain. We need only live, live, and live--and thank our ancestors in the process.

Bravo to one of the greatest writers of our time. To your list of things you must do before you die, add this novel.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tresalyn Murray-Bray Features Editor:CityFlight Newsmagazine, October 24, 2000

By 

T. Bray (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wake of the Wind: A Novel (Paperback)

[review published for May Issue] Amid the hoards of boilerplate pulp fiction novelists who crank out predictable endings, there remains a gifted writer who is true to her craft. In her latest novel, The Wake of the Wind, J. California Cooper has woven a tale not bound by time or space. This generational fiction piece opens in Africa, but the reader is given a bird's eye view of the blood-history of two men, Suwaibu and Kola, stolen from the motherland that endured a gruesome Middle Passage to land on the unwelcoming shores of America only to be sold as chattel in the Deep South. Unbeknownst to them, they are men whose lives are eternally intertwined. Through a creatively threaded series of events, brutal slavery, emancipation, and post Civil war reconstruction, Cooper leads the reader down the path of several hundred years to end up with a remarkable tale of survival, triumph, and overwhelming fortitude. Though Lifee is the central figure of the story, it is clear that the story belongs to every African American acting as a piece of bitter Americana-a sort of unwanted patch on the quilt of our heritage in this country. The majority of the novel's events are played out in the post Civil War South, during an era when southern whites felt that everything good had `gone with the wind.' The tale is poignantly told and relived through the reader's own imagination. All the struggles, victories, anxieties, and familial pride that propel modern day families to press on in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds are the same driving forces that were born in the breast of ex-slaves who made their home in southern towns all over America during the reconstruction. This is not merely a tale glorifying blacks to the exclusion of all others. Much to the contrary, the reader is given a glimpse into the souls of folk of all walks of life who simply want to live out their days in peace in the company of their loved ones. This novel comes as a resounding rebuttal to the notion that nothing productive could come of the South at the close of the Civil War. Cooper's refutation hinges on the principle that even though a horrific storm blew through the south, a number of resilient African American souls endured the bitter fallout and lived to tell their tale in The Wake of the Wind.