[1] He wrote seven crime novels that describe life in Black America, in the underworld of drugs and violence and in jail (The Farm).
[1] His first book, The Scene, was a success with the critics; according to The New York Herald Tribune: “Not even Nelson Algren's The Man With the Golden Arm burns with the ferocious intensity you’ll find here.
"[2] The Scene had been published by Random House, but Cooper's other three books were published by Regency, a pulp paperback publisher, while Cooper was in prison in Detroit: Weed (1961), The Dark Messenger (1962) and Yet Princes Follow, together with Not We Many, as Black: Two Short Novels (1962).
[5] Cooper's addiction and a growing alienation from those around him, perhaps driven by the hostile response to his fiction, all contributed to his early destitute death.
Cooper died penniless, strung out and alone in the 23rd street YMCA New York City in 1978.