Homemade Love: A Short Story Collection

by J. California Cooper

Overview

In this American Book Award winning short story collection, J. California Cooper brings to life thirteen moving short stories that explore the threads and nuances of all kinds of love—whether romantic, familial or friendship. Written in the literary folk tradition associated most often with Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, Homemade Love draws a vivid picture of Black characters finding love in the most unlikely of places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250857736
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/27/2024
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	558,875
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

J. California Cooper is the author of novels, six collections of stories, and seventeen plays. Her book Homemade Love was the winner of the American Book Award in 1989, and she has been honored as the Black Playwright of the Year. She has also received the James Baldwin Writing Award and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association. She lived in California until her death in 2014.

Table of Contents

Swimming to the Top of the Rain
Living
Happiness Does Not Come in Colors
Funny Valentines
When Life Begins!
Without Love
The Watcher
At Long Last
Having Fun
The Magic Strength of Need
Swingers and Squares
Down That Lonesome Road
Spooks

Editorial Reviews

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

“[Cooper] tells stories that move and dance about people who pop off the page to lodge themselves firmly in the reader's affection.” – Publishers Weekly

“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.

From the Publisher

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)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.

Library Journal