The Future Has a Past

by J. California Cooper

First published 2001

Vinnie works too hard and gives too much as a single mother. She sacrifices everything for others until an unexpected opportunity arrives in "The Eagle Flies." Her story unfolds alongside other women facing their own crossroads with love. A married mother watches her friend Lorene make dangerous choices about desire in "A Shooting Star." Lorene's beauty cannot protect her from the deadly consequences of her innocence. Luella waits for her luck to turn when her mother dies and leaves her money in "A Filet of Soul," though change comes slower than she hopes. Irene finally confronts her cheating boyfriend with devastating information in "The Lost and Found." These women discover that love arrives on its own terms, often when they expect it least. Their stories reveal how ordinary lives contain extraordinary moments of truth.

Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, family-life, african-american, contemporary, 21st-century

Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: found-family, ordinary-people

Period: 21st-century

288 pages · Paperback · Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

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