What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (31 page)

Thanks also to Pat Lottier and the
Atlanta Tribune
, Susan Taylor and
Essence
magazine, Denise Stinson, Howard Rosenstone, Johnnetta Cole and Spelman College, and Carrie Feron, for their support and assistance.

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.

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

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?