Life is Short But Wide / by J. California Cooper

Author Joan California Cooper, known to readers as J. California Cooper, was born in Berkeley, California and divided much of her younger days between Northern California and rural Texas. She began writing a performing plays as a very young child and even though much of her earlier work was done in private and hidden from public view, she succeeded in quickly gaining esteem for her scripts like "Strangers", "Loners" and "Everytime It Rains" which have been widely performed in a variety of platforms. As well as a playwright Cooper is a successful short story writer and novelist. Her 1986 book Homemade Love won an ABA prize and she's been honored with the American Library Association's Literary Lion and James Baldwin awards. Considered a bit of a recluse who prefers to keep her whereabouts as well as her age a secret, Cooper has been characterized as an author whose deceptively simple style evokes a wide range of deftly portrayed themes and ideas. Among her latest novels is Life Is Short But Wide (2010), about a small rural Oklahoma community whose simple family and generational personalities evoke an often overlooked place and time.

In early twentieth century America, rural Wideland, Oklahoma is home to a handfull of hard-working African American families struggling to eke out a living and live out their dreams. With the railroad station has come some prosperity and a few newcomers, but very little has changed from how Hattie B. Brown, the local octogenarian and storyteller, remembers it. Though at a loss for memory some times and never quite as surefooted as she used to be, Hattie relates the comings and goings of the folks of Wideland. Among the new residents, Hattie introduces the gregarious cowboy Val Strong and his part-Cherokee friend Wings, both of whom work to keep their head of cattle well-fed and well-stocked. Then there's Val's beautiful but less-friendly and sometimes bitter wife Irene who takes care of the couple's two daughters Rose and Tante, both of them stubborn and often bickering but not without their joy and good times. Alongside the Strongs are Joseph and Bertha, another couple and their daughter Myra. As the families cope with the hardships that come with changing times and fortunes, and people are born and pass away, the characters learn the importance of living boldly and squeezing out every possible moment of life, love and ambition.

Cooper is very good. Her portrait of American life, at once tender-hearted and down-to-earth is as heartwarming as it is poignant, is every bit as truthful to life as Willa Cather, Jane Smiley, Larry McMurtry or even Ernest Gaines (Life is Short But Wide will remind more than a few readers of Gaines' The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman). The trials and hardships, ambitions and setbacks of each of the characters in the novel can't help but captivate the reader as they share lessons and sidenotes on living life to the fullest and appreciating those who make you what you are. Those who've read Cooper's work before will recognize familiar voices in this book. The characters don't differ too much from previous protagonists and supporting cast where the actions and reactions to the changing times and new challenges offer a coherent blend of sage-like endearments and charming authenticity. (FIC COOPER)

New Fiction By Texas Authors

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The Devil is a Lie / by ReShonda Tate Billingsley
Talented local author Billingsley has published her latest, very entertaining novel about a Houston woman who wins the $8 million Texas lottery. Nina Lawson couldn’t be more surprised when her winning ticket is called; or more overwhelmed as family, friends and even her fiancé start clamoring for her attention.

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Amigoland: A Novel / by Oscar Casares

Casares wonderfully characterizes his own South Texas homeland in this, his brilliant debut novel. Elderly Don Fidencio lives his days in a nursing home called Amigoland, pondering his past, his estranged family members and when he can sneak his next cigarette.

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The Color of Lightning / by Paulette Jiles
Author of the wildly successful and bestselling Stormy Weather, Jiles depicts the lone star state in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The story follows freed slave Britt Johnson on an adventurous journey across the wild and untamed Texas frontier.

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Smooth Talking Stranger / Lisa Kleypas

Kleypas was born and raised in Southeast Texas and is evidently very familiar with the region and culture. Her latest contemporary romance novel is set in Houston where journalist Ella Varner is the very definition of Miss Independent. But that all changes when she meets the rich and ritzy Jack Travis.

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Rhino Ranch: A Novel / by Larry McMurtry
McMurtry concludes his Duane Moore saga in the place where it began—the small west Texas town of Thalia which he first introduced in his 1966 novel The Last Picture Show. Devoted fans of the Thalia novels will recognized McMurtry's skilled characterization of the easygoing but thoughtful Duane whose outlook on life is one of a kind.

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Roses / by Leila Meacham
San Antonio author Meacham’s sweeping family saga examines a small East Texas town through the entirety of the 20th century, describing three successive generations of one family as they live, love, work, laugh and die.

Buddenbrook: The Decline of a Family / a novel by a Thomas Mann; trans. by Klaus Marie Brandauer

Among the pinnacles of German literature, Thomas Mann is one name which shines exceptionally bright. Born in Lubeck in 1875, Mann was the son of a moderately well-to-do town merchant and prominent baroness. Though he would publicly poke fun and even revile his bourgeios background he was, self-proclaimedly, quite fond of the culture which it preserved. His most recognizable feat was perhaps capturing, with sardonic candor and discerning commentary, the transition of German society from an age of loosely defined aristocracy to a united federation and forerunner to a republic. Published in 1900 after over three years of writing, Buddenbrook is seen by critics as, if not his best, at least his most autobiographical and densely layered novel.

In northern Germany nearing the end of the 19th century the Buddenbrooks of Lubeck represent one of the rich, highly educated families which at the time form the upper class level of Prussian society. Though prosperous and influential, the family is well-grounded in morality, sternly pious and deeply reverential towards established traditions of integrity and hard work. The Buddenbrooks live in a world where strict divisions of society are laid down. Distinctions between the labor classes, bourgeoisie and upper-middle class mercantile families are easily identifiable even within the relatively small town of Lubeck where the Buddenbrooks play a major role in maintaining the status quo in regards to both themselves and everybody else. Unspoken guidelines for whom their children should associate with, which schools they should attend, who they form ties to and, of course, whom they should ultimately marry go hand-in-hand with daily tasks. Both sides of the social spectrum are aware of the often costly implications an inappropriate match could have which is why it is so important that the couple’s youngest daughter Frau Antonia "Tony" Buddenbrook marry Herr Grunlich, a visibly successful businessman from Hamburg and a man seemingly of good taste and distinction, even if Tony doesn't like him.

Tony's poor opinion of her "chosen" mate isn't so inaccurate. As it turns out, within months after their wedding, Herr Grunlich is found out as a scoundrel, unworthy of all good society and especially of being wed to such a catch as Tony. The marriage promptly dissolves in divorce, a lamentable but necessary action which eventually puts the Buddenbrooks back into relatively modest standing among their peers. Other problems crop up though as Christian, the family's middle child chooses a life in the theater, a heretofore unheard-of and near scandalous profession to embark upon. As further indignities cause friction and highlight conflict, the family fortune, once worth nearly 100,000 marks, has now dwindled to an alarmingly low sum as collective debts force the once and still proud family to face reality.

Mann's novel is not so much about the family Buddenbrook epitomizing the ruling class as it is about their decline, a dissolution which parallels the demise of an entire epoch and the ultimate dismembering of the Hapsburgian Empire. Even as shrewd decisions are made by upstanding family members in order to preserve their "place", shifting paradigms of a world beyond their control force the family and indeed the whole of Germany to confront change and transition. Mann was one of the great commentators of his times. The turn-of-the-century changes affecting his native land, the growing nationalism, imperial transitions, political reconfigurations and the creeping advance of German militarism are perhaps best detailed through his exquisite works both fiction and non-fiction.