Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper
"Some Soul to Keep" by J. California Cooper is a collection of five intricately woven stories narrated by strong female voices, offering rich insights into the lives of Black women. Each story, while independent, shares a thematic focus on overcoming adversity, self-assertion, and the complexities of love and relationships. The narrators, who often interject philosophical musings, employ a distinctive Black dialect that enhances the authenticity of their experiences.
The narratives explore diverse life paths, such as the contrasting fates of three women shaped by their maternal influences, and the transformative journeys of characters like Molly and Birdie, who navigate hostility, trauma, and societal challenges. Cooper's characters often demonstrate resilience and moral fortitude, prioritizing personal strength and genuine connections over material wealth.
Critically, Cooper's storytelling style diverges from contemporary conventions, embracing an episodic form that combines humor, optimism, and a candid moral perspective. While some critics note her didactic approach, many appreciate her celebration of individuality and freedom, positioning her work as a vital contribution to literature that encourages female empowerment, particularly among Black women. "Some Soul to Keep" invites readers into a world of rich narratives that reflect the struggles and triumphs of its characters, making it a compelling exploration of resilience and self-discovery.
Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper
First published: 1987
Type of work: Short stories
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: Late twentieth century
Locale: United States
Principal Characters:
Superior , the heroine of “Sisters of the Rain,” a big, strong, homely girlJewel , a sexy girl in contrast to SuperiorGlenellen , the only major character in this collection of stories who is whiteMolly , the narrator of “The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)”Isobel , Molly’s childhood friend who becomes her next-door neighbor after they are both marriedBirdie , the narrator of “Red-Winged Blackbirds”Reva , a “Cinderella” whom Birdie meets by accident when the girl is fifteen years oldBessie , the protagonist of “About Love and Money”Mavis , Bessie’s foilChristine , the heroine of “Feeling for Life”
The Stories
Some Soul to Keep is made up of five stories, all of which are sufficiently long and eventful to seem like miniature novels. All are told by female narrators and are intended to be read aloud so that the subtleties of the black dialect can be fully appreciated. These narrators are strongly opinionated and frequently interrupt their narratives to interject philosophical observations. Cooper violates many sacrosanct conventions of modern story writing. It might be more accurate to call these five short works “tales,” because they have an episodic quality that is rather refreshing to readers who have become accustomed to tight, calculated, inhibited modern short stories in which conflicts are mainly internalized.
“Sisters of the Rain” is narrated by two women who are not characters in the story but are observers. The first is an elderly schoolteacher. Halfway through the story, the narration is taken over by the schoolteacher’s daughter, who grew up with the characters Superior, Jewel, and Glenellen. The story contrasts the lives of those three women between their early teens and their mid-forties. Two of them have tragic lives because they lacked worthy female role models. Only Superior, the least attractive and least intelligent, is successful, because her mother inspired her to make the most of her limited talents. The schoolteacher narrator uses her part of the story to illustrate her guiding principle: “You know, life goes a long way, don’t it? Just is all around you . . . filling up all the tiniest places, so you got to watch round you and keep it all together. Watch it, so to take care of it best you can, with whatever you have to work with.”
“The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)” is narrated by Molly, who is also the main character. She and her childhood friend Isobel live as hostile next-door neighbors for twelve years, with each believing that the other hates her. It is not until Isobel’s husband, Tolly, dies and Molly’s husband leaves her that the two women realize how maliciously they have been deceived. Both resolve to lead their own lives and never to trust men or to become financially or emotionally dependent upon them again. Molly states the point of her story at the beginning: “It’s like you got to be careful what life you live, cause it may not be your own! Some love, marriage or friend done led you to the wrong road, cause you trusted em.”
“Red-Winged Blackbirds” is another story about a young girl who is born into poverty and manages to achieve success and happiness through her own courage and determination. Twelve-year-old Birdie is almost raped by the son of her father’s white employer. Both of her parents are murdered by Klansmen when her father accuses the young man of attempted rape. She grows up an orphan but achieves financial success as proprietor of a bordello. She is terrified of sex because of her childhood experience but yearns for a child of her own. Eventually she “adopts” a teenage girl who is the victim of her mother’s abuse.
“About Love and Money” takes one of Cooper’s young “Cinderellas” into a different milieu. Bessie goes to work for a black dentist and his lazy wife. Eventually she displaces the wife in his affections. She marries the dentist and enjoys a life of luxury beyond that experienced by any of Cooper’s other heroines. When her husband begins cheating on her, however, she realizes that money is not everything. She obtains a divorce and finds true love with a husband who earns a humble living as a garbage collector. Cooper moralizes at the end of her story that love is more important than money but that there is nothing wrong with having both.
Cooper places “Feeling for Life” at the end of her collection as if to underscore her dominant thesis that any handicap can be overcome with courage and persistence. The heroine of this story starts in what appears to be an impossible situation: She is totally blind and, as the title suggests, has to feel her way through life. She is abandoned by her brother and sister, then raped by the minister to whom she goes for help. When a social worker tries to persuade her to give up her baby for adoption, Christine refuses. She learns to read braille, raises her own child, eventually finds true love from a man who respects her for her strength of character, and ends up providing a home for her selfish brother and sister, who have been failures.
Critical Context
Cooper has received widespread praise for her short stories in Some Soul to Keep and in previous collections. The qualities most often singled out are her optimism, her sincerity, her earthy humor, and her obvious desire to encourage her female readers—black female readers in particular—to assert themselves. She is an important writer mainly because of her philosophy opposing dependency. As novelist Terry McMillan wrote in an article in The New York Times Book Review, “After reading Some Soul to Keep, you feel lucky to have entered the worlds of a few poor black women and their families who don’t cry or whine about their condition, but are set on figuring out how to get on with their lives.”
Some critics have complained that Cooper is too didactic. It is true that Cooper drives home moral arguments by shaping her plots to illustrate them. She also uses the same narrative technique in every story: A first-person female narrator tells a person’s life story in black dialect and frequently intrudes on her narrative to moralize about the characters and events she is describing. Cooper’s interjections are frequently striking in their commen sense, but they threaten to destroy the illusion of reality. Some critics complain that all the female narrators sound exactly the same and that this becomes monotonous.
Cooper, however, is comfortable with the style she has worked out for herself and seems impervious to this type of criticism. She is definitely not an advocate of “art for art’s sake” but has strong opinions that she insists on expressing in the most effective way available. Her indifference to modern trends in short fiction writing, such as minimalism, sets an important example for younger writers because it deliberately violates inhibiting rules. She might be described as a primitivist. Like most primitive artists, she injects refreshing new life into her medium. Her style, like her subject matter, is a protest against timid conformity and an affirmation of freedom and individuality.
The stories in Some Soul to Keep are crammed with people and events. Some critics have complained that the stories violate the cardinal rule formulated by Edgar Allan Poe that a short story should be designed to produce a “single effect.” Cooper’s stories in Some Soul to Keep read more like miniature novels because of the plethora of incidents and the lengthy philosophical commentaries by the narrators. Cooper moved steadily in the direction of becoming a novelist because she realized that she needed the larger canvas to depict her vision of life. In 1991, she published her first novel, Family, which received generally favorable critical attention.
Bibliography
Ames, Carol. Review of Some Soul to Keep, by J. California Cooper. Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 27, 1987, 4. The reviewer criticizes Cooper’s stories as being too long for stories and not long enough for novels. She says the stories have “neither the concision and focus of stories, nor the amplitude of detail and incident of a novel.” She acknowledges that they are often “lusty, touching and wise.”
Carter, Patricia A. Review of Some Soul to Keep, by J. California Cooper. Essence 18 (September, 1987): 34. The reviewer believes that the common denominator of Cooper’s stories is her “strong yet sensitive heroines who find the inner power to survive the poverty of the rural South or the cold indifference of the North.”
Cooper, J. California. Family. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Cooper’s first novel deals with slavery and conditions in the South after emancipation. Many of the stylistic devices developed in her short stories are evident in this historical novel, particularly the use of a first-person female narrator.
Cooper, J. California. Homemade Love. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. A collection of short stories in which Cooper continues to develop her unique method of using a narrator who interjects personal observations and bits of folk wisdom.
Cooper, J. California. A Piece of Mine. Navarro, Calif.: Wild Trees Press, 1984. An early collection of Cooper’s short stories, with an informative introduction by Alice Walker. These stories are much shorter than those in Some Soul to Keep but display Cooper’s moral and artistic values in miniature.
Kirkus Reviews. Review of Some Soul to Keep, by J. California Cooper. 55 (August 15, 1987): 1178. The reviewer praises Cooper’s simplicity and sincerity, saying that her message in both Some Soul to Keep and her earlier collection Homemade Love is essentially that “goodness wins out in the end, and love conquers all.”
McMillan, Terry. “Life Goes on, and Don’t You Forget It.” The New York Times Book Review, November 8, 1987, 23. This review of Some Soul to Keep acknowledges Cooper’s sincerity and forcefulness but criticizes her on several points. McMillan objects to the didactic nature of the stories as well as to the fact that the narrators are too intrusive and always seem to be the same voice under different names.
Mitchell, Angelyn. The Freedom to Remember: Narrative, Slavery, and Gender in Contemporary Black Women’s Fiction. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Includes a chapter analyzing Cooper’s representation of familial relationships, particularly in families with absent mothers.
Oliver, Stephanie Stokes. “J. California Cooper: From Paper Dolls to Paperbacks.” Essence 22 (May, 1991): 52. This profile discusses Cooper’s works in relation to her personal life. Cooper is portrayed as a woman not unlike many of the heroines of her stories.
Schumacher, Michael. Review of Homemade Love, by J. California Cooper. Writer’s Digest 67 (February, 1987): 21. Schumacher discusses modern short stories in general and uses Cooper’s stories as examples of good short fiction that is still entertaining in the traditional way. He describes the pleasure of hearing Cooper read her work in person and points out that she writes for the ear as well as for the eye.