September 13, 2004
An unborn child narrates Cooper's earthy fourth novel, which, through a minute exploration of the lives and loves of the residents of Dream Street in the town of Place, aims to unveil the vastness of human experience. At the heart of the novel is the narrator's future mother, Eula Too. Born to a poor African-American family in a small town outside of Chicago, Eula Too spent her early years caring for her numerous younger siblings, finding time to sneak away for lessons with a beloved teacher and letting an impotent chauffeur touch her for spending money. When she eventually flees home, hoping for a better life in Depression-era Chicago, she is raped and abandoned, only to be discovered by the rich owner of a high-class brothel. Madame LaFon takes Eula Too in, not as a future prostitute but as a friend. The years pass and Eula Too, now a loving, moral young woman, accompanies Madame to her hometown of Place, where she endeavors to turn the neighborhood into a haven of love and goodwill. A certain didacticism—about politics, rich-poor relations and the importance of morality—gives the tale added depth, if also a kind of heavy-handedness. Cooper's (The Wake of the Wind
) simple, plain writing and unequivocal regard for all people stand out in a novel scattered in narrative but united in its humanity. Agent, Anna Ghosh.