The Future Has a Past

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY OCT 2, 2000

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 readersDand critically well regarded, tooDCooper 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.