Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns

One can’t help but to love J. California Cooper and her heavy-handed narrator self in her latest offering of short stories, Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (2006), told the way your tough but sweet, God-fearin’ auntie would: sometimes graceful, sometimes verbose, often preachy, forever feigning ignorance, but wisdom-wise in true southern doublespeak. Although different ages and circumstances were identified, attempts to give the narrator of each story a separate personality were futile; one could imagine aunties’ shawl-draped shoulders embracing the southern breeze as she recounted her tales. The one perceptible departure was an odd, rambling narrator whose message nearly fell through the holes in her childhood recollection. The vibrant characters adorned with telling names offer pre-encounter insight into their lives like sisters Willa and Futila Ways and politician Mr. Bsurd. The tales presented in Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns hold all the jealousy, misery, adultery, covetry? and every breakable admonition in the Old and New Testaments one can handle where characters reap what they sow, for better or worse. Give it to a churchified loved one and they’ll smile for days. But be careful or you’ll find yourself their next victim, er witnessee.