Seen It All and Done the Rest (33 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most special thanks to my husband, Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., for his amazing generosity as a constant collaborator and his ability to make every road trip a life-changing adventure; to my grandchildren, Michael and Chloe, for always being as happy to see me as I am to see them; to my sister, Kristin Williams; her husband, Jim; and their children and grandchildren; and to my friends Lynette Lapeyrolerie, Walt and Lynn Huntley, Cecelia Corbin Hunter, Ingrid Saunders Jones, Jimmie Lee Tarver, A. B. and Karen Spellman, Shirley C. Franklin, Ray and Marilyn Cox, Gary and Helen Richter, Ayshia Jeffries, Marc and Elaine Lawson, Kay Hagan, Donald P. Stone, and Maria Broom; and the West Coast branch of my extended family, Zaron W. Burnett III, Meaghan V. Underwood, Skylar and Griffin Underwood; Ron Gwiazda for taking care of business; Howard Rosenstone; and Bill Bagwell, just because.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P
EARL
C
LEAGE
is the author of
Baby Brother’s Blues, Babylon Sisters, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
…, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection,
Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do
, and
I Wish I Had a Red Dress
, as well as three works of nonfiction:
Mad at Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth, Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot
, and
We Speak Your Names: A Celebration,
in collaboration with Zaron W. Burnett, Jr. She is also an accomplished dramatist. Her plays include
Flyin’ West
and
Blues for an Alabama Sky
. Cleage lives in Atlanta with her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr.

ALSO BY PEARL CLEAGE

fiction

Baby Brother’s Blues

Babylon Sisters

Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do

I Wish I Had a Red Dress

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day…

nonfiction

Mad at Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth

Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot

We Speak Your Names: A Celebration

Seen It All and Done the Rest
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Pearl Cleage

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

O
NE
W
ORLD
is a registered trademark and the One World colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Cleage, Pearl.

Seen it all and done the rest: a novel / Pearl Cleage.

p.                            cm.

1. African American actresses—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. Atlanta (Ga.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3553.L389S44 2008

813'.54—dc22                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    2007040822

www.oneworldbooks.net

eISBN: 978-0-345-50450-0

v3.0