The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Walker’s first novel, is a poignant preface to her fictional canon. In this novel, published when Walker was only twenty-six years old, many of her later artistic concerns are present, including the creation of “real” black women, the sexual and racial oppression of black women, the preoccupation with the inner lives of characters, the repressed or thwarted creativity of black women, the exploration of the effects of racism and discrimination on individuals from an inside perspective, the legacy of parental values transmitted to children, and the use of African American history and cultural traditions. More than anything, the novel is the story of the individual’s relationship to community.

The novel exposes those parts of black experience that subvert kinship and delete its life-giving potential. Targets of Walker’s exposition and criticism are male-female relationships, motherhood, and sexism. Walker’s message, contained within the Copeland family chronicle, is that any destruction of black people, from within or from without the black community, must stop. African Americans must accept responsibility for saving one another’s lives, as Grange finally does when he becomes close to Ruth.