What Looks Crazy on an Ordinary Day - Pearl Cleage

Mary Wamae
Jul 5, 2020
4 min read

What Looks Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage is the first novel I have read in January 2019. I make a point to read a book a month and What Looks Crazy on an Ordinary Day was especially interesting to read.

However, her life choices of sleeping with different men have caught up with her and she is diagnosed with HIV. One of the wives of her lovers confronts her in her salon and insists that she must “take it back” from her husband. The mess affects her business as she loses clients and friends. She decides to relocate to San Francisco but first goes back home to the little town of Idlewild.

Idlewild is a small town with nothing much happening. Joyce, Ava’s sister is more than happy to have her little sister back. Joyce has had her share of losses in her life. She lost her children and husband in separate occasions and lives alone. She has found a way to keep herself busy with the church’s young women group called the Sewing Circle.

Joyce sends Eddie Jefferson to go get Ava from the airport. “Wild Eddie” as Ava calls him had changed into a handsome dreadlock hair man. In her short vacation in the small town, Ava gets to know the new Eddie and falls in love with him. Joyce helps Eartha (crack mother) to give birth in the hospital. The new crack mother has no intentions of raising the child and she runs away. Joyce has to go looking for her at her home where Mattie and Frank also reside in the home and are as irresponsible as Eartha if not more. They not only abuse crack but also sell it. Joyce is given temporary custody of the baby.

Idlewild proves to be the distraction that Ava needed. During this time, she decides to stop drinking, mediate and takes morning walks every day. She attends church and helps Joyce with the Sewing Circle group. The new reverend’s wife has other plans for the group and insists that they discuss matters of development but not love and sex. Joyce defies her and continues her sex education lessons. As a result, the group is stopped from meeting on church premises. They move to Joyce’s house for their sessions.

In the meantime, Ava and Eddie affection for each other grows and they had a wonderful but safe experience together. One of the elderly residences, Johnny Mack has to move from his son’s home and be admitted in an elderly home. Joyce and Ava decide to buy his house and Eddie fixes it for them for free. Just when a reader is all smiles and on cloud nine, Joyce’s funding is cut off for the Sewing Circle by a complaint from Gerry, the Reverend’s wife. Frank comes to scare the women and through a stone through the front window. Ava is accused of instigating an unhealthy relationship with the young men. Mattie comes for baby Imani with the social services and the sheriff, and Imani gets into an accident and is seriously injured. Ava finds a way of exposing the Reverend and his wife.

The novel ends beautifully but abruptly with the wedding of Eddie and Ava, Imani fully healed and the Sewing Circle new home being opened. This marks the beginning of a new life for the town with a new reverend in charge of the church as well. It feels like a part two would be coming in the mix. The reader is left longing to read more of Ava, Eddie, and Joyce’s life. What happens in the love life of Ava and Eddie? How does Imani grow up? Will Joyce love again? Does the new Reverend bring about change in Idlewild? Will crack stop its ugly manifestation among the youth of the small town?

All in all, the novel is captivating enough to make one read it in one sitting. Its structure is unique to only Pearl Cleage. It is secret diary entries that turn to be a full pledged novel with serious issues and major twists. I commend the author for bringing to life the sensitive topic of AIDS and HIV. She gives encouragement to people living HIV and AIDS and people affected by AIDS.

Drugs are also a center of the novel. Crack has moved from the big cities and has laid claim to the youths in the small towns. They are either abusing it or vending it to others. Eartha is a crack user who is pregnant and also HIV positive. She puts her unborn child at great risk. When the baby is born, special care has to be given and though she is HIV negative, the rest of her family put her in danger because they are still using crack. Drug abuse has been a major concern in black communities.

I pay great respect to this novel because it shines light on the beautiful place called Idlewild and the people that go out of their way to help each other and the overall community. It is a story of young people looking to change the fate of their beloved town in their little way which gains recognition and ultimately brings about positive change for the future.