by Pearl Cleage
Then a couple of other people said how it felt a little like the old days to have everybody there together like we were and Sister Judith said a prayer to Mother/Father God and asked the group to make a circle around me and Eddie so we could look each other in the eye and promise to go the distance.
Joyce stood by me, Aretha held Imani, who was cooing like a dove, and Bill stood up with Eddie, and Sister Judith asked and we answered and the candles were the only light around us and for just a second, when Eddie reached out for my hand, I felt myself wanting to stay in this moment forever because nothing was ever going to be this perfect or this complete again.
But then, right in the middle of Sister Judith saying something about our hearts becoming one with the heart of the universe, Eddie leaned over and kissed me like we were alone in that room, and right then, right there, I didn’t care what came next. Whatever it was, I knew it would be all right, or it wouldn’t be all right, but it would be part of the same unbroken line we were all walking in, which is, of course, the real lesson, and about as much perfection as I could stand without crying right there in front of everybody, which is, of course, what I did. Then it was done, official, and the party could begin in earnest.
And it did. And we danced too wild, and we sang too long, and we hugged too hard, and kissed too sweet, and threw back our heads and howled just as loud as we wanted to howl, because by now we were all old enough to know that what looks like crazy on an ordinary day looks a lot like love if you catch it in the moonlight.
A Reading Group Guide to
What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day
Introduction
After a decade of living it up in Atlanta, getting it on with lots of men, ending up with HIV and a whopping case of remorse, Ava Johnson has decided there’s at least one thing left worth doing, and doing well — telling the truth. So does Pearl Cleage in her award-winning first novel which puts a witty, wise spin on contemporary women’s issues, hard choices, harder good-byes, and brave new beginnings.
Ava Johnson is returning home to Idlewild, Michigan, on her way to someplace better, like San Francisco. Her overt reason for the trip is to spend some bonding time with her sister Joyce. In the bad luck department, Joyce has been given her share of no refund, no return items. But if Ava is thinking gloom and doom on her arrival, she has another thing coming — when Joyce sends wild Eddie Jefferson, a handsome Rastafarian brother with a head full of beautiful dreadlocks, to pick her up at the airport. And what is waiting in Idlewild is a small town filled with big-city problems, a life-lesson in becoming a “free woman,” and an unexpected miracle called love.
Discussion Questions
1. Both Ava and Joyce are at crisis points in their lives. Compare the two women. How does each cope with her heartaches? What works . . . and what doesn’t.
2. Ava and Joyce aren’t the only women facing tough challenges in this novel. Joyce says of the girls in the Sewing Circus, “These girls haven’t got a chance. There aren’t any jobs and there aren’t going to be any. They’re stuck up here in the middle of the damn woods, watching talk shows, smoking crack, collecting welfare, and having babies. What kind of life is that?” [”June,” Chapter 10] Ava’s unspoken answer is City life. Do you agree that the same problems confront urban and rural young women? What do you think are the greatest ones? Whose responsibility is it to help young people overcome them?
3. In the section called “August,” Joyce makes up a list of “Ten Things Every Free Woman Should Know.” First define “free woman” — then make up your own list.
4. The church in this novel shows both its sides: the good it can do; the harm it can do. How do you feel about the church’s handling of the Reverend’s sexual abuse? What do you feel should be the response of a church organization — whether a black church or the Roman Catholic Church — to this problem?
5. At the center of this novel is the tragedy of HIV. Discuss the community’s reaction to Ava’s HIV status. Then discuss her own response to a new relationship. How would you interpret her dream in Chapter 18 — and the very last line of the book?
An Excerpt from I Wish I Had a Red Dress
About the book: Pearl Cleage brings back the characters from What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. . . to share, once again, the joys and sorrows of tiny Idlewild, Michigan. This time the focus is on Ava’s big sister, Joyce, who, unlike Ava, has never been flamboyant, and has never had a red dress, or the kind of life that goes along with it. But now, after many years of selfless service to others, she feels it’s time to do something special for herself — especially since there’s the unmistakable hint of romance in the air.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Joy is a rare quality in a decent novel . . . [but] author and playwright Pearl Cleage can do joy: Her new novel is suffused with the sheer fun of being alive.”
ONE
Joyce
I WISH I HAD a red dress. I’ve been wearing black for so long I feel like one of those ancient women in the foreign movies who are always sitting around, fingering their rosary beads and looking resigned while the hero rides to his death on behalf of the people, or for the sake of true love, which is really six of one, half dozen of the other, when you think about it.
I never cared much about clothes. My basic requirement is comfort, which automatically cuts out high-heeled shoes, push-up bras, panty hose and strapless evening gowns, but could theoretically still leave room for a range of colors, fabrics and even a stylish little something or other for special occasions.
The convenience of all black used to appeal to me. I loved the fact that I could reach into my closet and know everything I touched was going to match everything else I touched with absolutely no effort on my part, but it can be a little depressing sometimes. Even to me.
I didn’t consciously start wearing black as a sign of mourning, even though at some subconscious level, I probably did. My husband, Mitch, died five years ago, which is when I really started noticing it, but he was just the last of a long line. My father passed when I was sixteen. My mother committed suicide on my wedding night a year later. My son got hit by a car walking home from school when he was six and my daughter didn’t make it to her first birthday. I think she was the hardest one for me to deal with because I barely got to know her and she was gone.
It was just the opposite with Mitch. We’d been together since I was fifteen and we were so close I made the mistake of thinking we were the same person until he fell through that hole in the ice and drowned and I didn’t die, even though for a long time I wished I had.
My baby sister, Ava, says it’s hard to keep your body looking good when you know nobody’s going to see you naked. She could have added that when you know your primary audience when clothed is preschoolers, some distracted teenage mothers, a few retirees and a government bureaucrat or two, it’s equally difficult to get up much enthusiasm for earrings that dangle and skirts that swirl like you’re standing in a little breeze even when you’re not.
I’m a social worker. I used to be a teacher. Then one day I looked around and realized that what I was teaching and the way I was teaching it were completely irrelevant to my students’ real lives. They were just ordinary kids from around here; young and wild and full of the most complicated human emotions and not nearly enough facility in any language to articulate those feelings to each other or to anyone else. But one day I saw them, really saw them, and everything changed.
It was a public high school and my classes were coed, but it was the girls who kept drawing my attention. There they’d be, balancing their squalling babies on their hips in the grocery store, slapping their toddlers at the Blockbuster, rolling their eyes and tossing their extensions, considering exotic dancing as a career option, falling in love with the wrong guys, being abused, getting AIDS and steadily having kids the whole time, and they were so absolutely confined and confused by their tiny little fear-based dreams that I looked out at them one day while I was trying to teach a poem by e. e
. cummings, and they broke my heart. I started crying and had to dismiss the class so I could get myself together.
That’s when I knew there had to be a better way to communicate with these girls than the one I was using. I decided that finding that better way was going to be my life’s work because I don’t think a group of people can survive if the women don’t even have enough sense to raise their children.
That’s why clothes are usually the last thing on my mind. Black pants and a black turtleneck without applesauce showing anywhere are about the best I can hope for at the moment, but somehow I can’t get that red dress out of my mind.
About the Author
Pearl Cleage is the author of the novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. . ., which was both an Oprah’s Book Club selection and a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman’s Guide to Truth, and Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot. An accomplished playwright whose stage works include Flyin’ West and Blues for an Alabama Sky, she is also a contributing writer to Essence magazine and frequently performs her work on college campuses. Cleage is the mother of one daughter, Deignan. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Zaron W. Burnett, Jr.
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ALSO BY PEARL CLEAGE
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot
Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman’s Guide to Truth
Flyin’ West and Other Plays
The Brass Bed and Other Stories
We Don’t Need No Music
Credits
Cover illustration by Zita Asbaghi
Interior design by Kellan Peck
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Excerpt on page xi is from “Celebration,” A Dark and Splendid Mass, Harlem River Press, 1992. Used by permission.
WHAT LOOKS LIKE CRAZY ON AN ORDINARY DAY. Copyright © 1997 by Pearl Cleage. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
“A Reading Group Guide to What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. . .” Copyright © 1998 by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Excerpt from I Wish I Had a Red Dress. Copyright © 2001 by Pearl Cleage
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2002 ISBN: 9780061807176
First Avon Books Trade Paperback Printing: November 1998
First Avon Books Hardcover Printing: December 1997
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowlegdments
Epigraph
June
July
August
September
November
HarperCollins E-book Extra:
An Excerpt from I Wish I Had a Red Dress
About the Author
Books by Pearl Cleage
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher