false 5175 14 <b>Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1998</b>: What makes Pearl Cleage's novel so damned enjoyable? At first glance, after all, <I>What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day</I> seems pretty heavy going: HIV, suicide, sudden infant death syndrome, and drunk driving all figure prominently in the lives of narrator Ava Johnson and her older sister Joyce. It isn't long before crack addiction, domestic violence, and unwed motherhood have joined the list--so, where's the pleasure? The answer lies in the sharp and funny attitude Cleage brings to her depiction of one African American community in the troubled '90s. Ava Johnson, for example, might be HIV-positive, but she's refreshingly forthright about it: "Most of us got it from the boys. Which is, when you think about it, a pretty good argument for cutting men loose, but if I could work up a strong physical reaction to women, I would already be having sex with them. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying I can't be a witness. Too many titties in one place to suit me." <p> Ada has spent the last 10 years living in Atlanta. When she discovers she's infected, she sells her hairdressing business and heads back to her childhood home of Idlewild, Michigan, to spend the summer with her recently widowed sister before moving on to San Francisco. Once there, however, she finds herself embroiled in big-city problems--drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and an abandoned crack-addicted baby, to name just a few--in a small-town setting. Ava also meets Eddie Jefferson, a man with a past who just might change her mind about the imprudence of falling in love. <p> In less assured hands, such a catalog of disasters would make for maudlin, melodramatic reading indeed. But Cleage, an accomplished playwright, has a way both with characters and with language that lifts this tale above its movie-of-the-week tendencies. In Ava she has created a character who not only effortlessly carries the weight of the story but also provides entertaining commentary on African American life as she goes. Discussing the insular nature of the black community in Atlanta, she recalls, "I'd walk into a reception room and there'd be a room full of brothers, power-brokering their asses off, and I'd realize I'd seen them all naked. I'd watch them striding around, talking to each other in those phony-ass voices men use when they want to make it clear they got <I>juice</I>, and it was so depressing, all I'd want to do was go home and get drunk." Later, she describes the preacher's wife's hair as "pressed and hot-curled within an inch of its life.... Hardly anybody asks for that kind of hard press anymore. Sister seems to have missed the moment when we decided it was okay for the hair to <I>move</I>." <p> As the trials and tribulations pile on, the experiences of Cleage's characters prove to be universal: death, love, second chances. Ava's acerbic, smart-mouthed narrative keeps the story buoyant; by the time this endearingly imperfect heroine and her cohorts have negotiated the rocky road to a happy ending, readers will be sorry to see her go, even as they wish her well. --<I>Alix Wilber</I> 3266662 book 1997 What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (Oprah's Book Club) total:2231|5:424|4:773|3:762|2:220|1:52| 2231 7990 3034 213 3 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Mar 09 04:48:26 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 09 04:48:26 -0700 2008 I found myself emotionally engaged by Ava's situation and relationships and didn't tire of the narrative at all.
I gu...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 13:27:33 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 14:07:30 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 06:52:57 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 18:12:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jun 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 10:38:45 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 29 09:37:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 22:04:36 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 22:39:14 -0700 2009 Knowing that she has HIV her older sister and a concerned friend change Ava's life more than she would ever expected.
Joyce the older sister...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Dec 06 19:16:59 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 09 20:39:43 -0800 2009
There is something to this idea: reading fiction geared towards AA folks, you encountered bits of culture that are assumed understood. Things lik...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 22 11:22:14 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 11:22:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 06:49:22 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 06:53:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Dec 12 04:28:40 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 12 04:59:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Fri Jan 16 12:52:26 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 31 18:51:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 14:04:57 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 14:04:57 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 01 16:34:16 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 12 01:52:47 -0700 2007
First - you can tell they based this book way back when the AIDS epedemic was first coming in because nowadays everyone knows about it and is not as ignorant as they were in the book. True - it was a lot more common because ppl were so dumb t...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 16 01:44:47 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 23 07:29:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 18 10:33:45 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 08:25:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Sun Sep 09 15:43:14 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 09 15:43:14 -0700 2007
For the most part, HIV and AIDS are still treated like taboo subjects that happens to other people. But this book is about a real woman who could be anybody. This novel covers a necessary subject and does so without judgment. The author is brave to tackle such a dif...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 29 20:35:50 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 29 20:38:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 13:39:55 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 08:16:50 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 24 07:22:31 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 07:23:53 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Jan 28 13:56:45 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 13:56:45 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 14:08:13 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 09:25:43 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1222071