The Matter Is Life - by J California Cooper (Paperback)

About the Book

American Book Award-winner J. California Cooper spins insight and irony into modern-day parables about simple people who love too little and too late, and about those who toil and struggle against a difficult and often hostile environment. This fourth collection of Cooper's unforgettable stories is alternately charming, disturbing, poignant, and humorous.

Review Quotes

"Exuberant. With her soul-stirring cry, Cooper urges readers to seize and savor every drop of life."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"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...Halfway between gossip and fairy tales, brimming with faith and high spirits, The Matter is Life clues us in on the lives of black women. Buy it. I loved it."
--Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times

About the Author

J. California Cooper is the author of four novels and six collections of stories. She was honored as Black Playwright of the Year, and her work received the American Book Award, the James Baldwin Writing Award, and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association. She died in 2014.