The Wake of the Wind

The Wake of the Wind by J.California Cooper
(
Anchor Books, 1998)

Wake of the WindHaving successfully taught J. California Cooper’s novel Family several times, I was looking forward to The Wake of the Wind, not only because I enjoy her style and honesty in depicting the cruelties of slavery but also because the book is set in the Reconstruction period of American history, a time not often covered in literature, especially from a Black perspective. In addition, I was hoping to find a book that would be more appropriate for the public schools as there are several graphic scenes of violence and rape that some administrators, parents, and perhaps students might find unsettling. However, although the historical elements of the novel are excellent and the descriptions of the violence and rape less graphic, I was disappointed in the slow movement of the plot and the long-winded didactic intrusions.

In a July 11, 1986, Publishers Weekly editorial review of Cooper’s second collection of short stories, Homemade Love, the critic wrote, “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.” Cooper has been criticized frequently by reviewers for her use of exclamation points, but she replied to reporter Stephanie Stokes Oliver, “The people in my short stories live in exclamation points” (Essence, May 1991). Unfortunately, Wake of the Wind could have used more exclamation points and less preaching!

The plot, however, is compelling with twists and turns as we watch Mor, Lifee, and their family and friends move from life as slaves to landowners who are eventually able to send their children to college. To see people once degraded and denied any sense of love and family ties unite and work successfully to overcome their oppressors is heartwarming. The journey is not without its tragedies and fears as the South tried its best to hinder their progress and independence. As in Family, we also see many instances of blacks with one white parent “passing” as whites in American society.

Erica Chu, one of my former undergraduates (who, I am proud to say, is in the doctoral program at Loyala University), received a grant from UNK to fly to Seattle to interview Cooper. The interview was published in The Writer’s Chronicle in the October/November2007 issue. In the article, Cooper discusses The Wake of the Wind. “Lots of little things in that book were for people to know–not just about slavery, but about life now. You have to be intelligent. Those were not fools who went through The Wake of the Wind. There were some thinking people in there. I wanted readers to know that not everybody got lynched–because some people were thinking. . . . They worked hard,and if you look at what’s behind you, like where you come from, somebody back there was working hard to survive. Then that’s how you got here.”

So, the bottom line on this book is that if you don’t mind wading through a little long-winded moralizing, this book will be one that will stick in your memory, lodge itself in your affection, and help you understand the Reconstruction period more fully. But will it keep the attention of the average high school or college general studies student? Probably not.

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