Wake of the Wind - Hardcover

Cooper, J. California

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385487045 ISBN 13: 9780385487047

Publisher: Doubleday, 1998

Synopsis

The Wake of the Wind is J.  California Cooper's third novel, and her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home and future for themselves and their families.  

Set in the South in the waning years of the Civil War, this is the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor.  When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own.  Miraculously, they manage not only to survive, but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others.  But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustice become a plague across the region, time and again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.

Land, however, is the least of their worldly possessions.  Lifee and Mor are the descendants of a long and vital line.  Having used their intelligence, strength, and ingenuity to make their place in the new post-Civil War world, they in turn pass those talents along to their children--the next generation to surge forward, accomplishing more than their parents could even dream.

At once tragic and triumphant, this is an epic story that captures with extraordinary authenticity the most important struggle of the last hundred years.

About this title

From the Publisher

In its strong folk flavor, Cooper's work reminds us of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. 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 foolish person's foolishness cannot be heard. It is a delight to read."
--Alice Walker

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

"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."
--Essence

"With power and grace, Cooper weaves the dialect, style, and myths of the South into a portrait of the hell that was slavery."
--Publishers Weekly

What a voice...Ms. Cooper celebrates family, freedom, perseverance, life, and...powerful voices finally heard."
--Atlanta Constitution

From the Back Cover

"A vivid picture of struggle and survival."
--Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Rendered with compassion and beautiful simplicity."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Heartwarming....Cooper knows the cadences of folktale well."
--Chicago Tribune

"[A] provocative and at times painful family portrait....It should be required reading."
--Detroit Free Press

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0385487045
• ISBN 13: 9780385487047
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384