#BookReview: Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs by Pearl Cleage

It has occurred to me that I have no close woman friends with whom to share confidences, fears, lusts, dreams. I am keeping an entire area of woman thoughts tucked away with no outlet or possibility of exchange! - Pearl Cleage

When I initially started the latest from the fabulous Pearl Cleage, I think I expected it to be a letter to her daughter or some kind of "do this, don't do that" list.  Instead, I got so much more.  My acquaintance and fascination with Cleage and her work started back in the 90s.  I guess I never really gave any thought to how she, or any other author, arrived at the point in their lives where they had enough experiences to write about anything.  But Mother Pearl has lived!

Pulling bits and pieces from her personal journals, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter, feels like a mother introducing her real self to her daughter.  I think as daughters, we sometimes forget that our mothers existed in the world before us and lived lives that we can't imagine.  We realize they're human, but forget that they're not just mothers.  It's wonderful to watch Cleage go back through her journals and expose herself as a woman, sister, daughter and lover.

She's an unashamed feminist.

“If women said they were sorry only when we really meant it, most of our conversations would be cut in half.”

She's an fierce womanist.

“Note on Ms.: It has some fairly decent articles, but they are all/all/all, down to the last woman, middle class and overwhelmingly white…The women working on the magazine all try to identify with non-white women and say that among women “there are no barriers,” but the only black woman in the whole issue is a black welfare mother who is in the fucking back of the magazine. She is obviously being used as a token.”

Her thoughts on love:

"I don't think you can love a man and be free.  There is too much bullshit."

“Whew. This must be Joe Louis love. If you not careful, it will knock you out."

And sexuality:

"Some people like to do sit ups in the morning. I like to have orgasms."

You shouldn't just buy this book because of all of the quotable quotes (I haven't even included a fourth of what I highlighted as I read it).  You should buy it because as you watch Cleage go from a young twentysomething recruiting black grad students to teach at southern black colleges to a speechwriter for Maynard Jackson, when you see her hanging with her friend Shirley and realize that it's the same Shirley Jackson that goes on to become the mayor of Atlanta, you're witnessing history unfold before your eyes.  Cleage is witty and wise from start to finish, writing and sharing her thoughts unabashedly; what an absolute treasure for anyone lucky enough to stumble upon her words.

“This morning, we saw a big roach in the kitchen. “Kill it,” I say, “I don’t kill roaches,” he says, “they have powerful karma.” “Roaches,” I answer, swatting at it with my house shoe, “are the only creatures on earth who have no karma whatsoever. Who ever heard of roach karma? In fact,” I continued, “God doesn’t even admit to creating roaches. He looked up at the nasty little things one day and said, who created this motherfucka?”

320pp
Published: April 2014
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#ComingAttractions: Books I Can't Wait to Read (Winter/Spring 2014)

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina
Misty Copeland
On Sale Date: March 4, 2014

Summary:  In this deeply felt and beautifully written memoir, Misty Copeland reveals her inspiring and at times heartbreaking journey to become the third African-American soloist in the history of the American Ballet Theatre.




Boy, Snow, Bird
Helen Oyeyemi
On Sale Date: March 4, 2014

Summary:  In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty—the opposite of the life she’s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman.

A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she’d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy’s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white. Among them, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.

Safe With Me
Amy Hatvany
On Sale Date: March 4, 2014

Summary:  The screech of tires brought Hannah Scott’s world as she knew it to a devastating end. Even a year after she signed the papers to donate her daughter’s organs, Hannah is still reeling with grief when she unexpectedly stumbles into the life of the Bell family, whose child, Maddie, survived only because hers had died. Mesmerized by this fragile connection to her own daughter and afraid to reveal who she actually is, Hannah develops a surprising friendship with Maddie’s mother, Olivia.



Every Day is for the Thief
Teju Cole
On Sale Date: March 25, 2014

Summary:  Visiting Lagos after many years away, Teju Cole's unnamed narrator rediscovers his hometown as both a foreigner and a local. A young writer uncertain of what he wants to say, the man moves through tableaus of life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world: he hears the muezzin's call to prayer in the early morning light, and listens to John Coltrane during the late afternoon heat. He witnesses teenagers diligently perpetrating e-mail frauds from internet cafes, longs after a woman reading Michael Ondaatje on a public bus, and visits the impoverished National Museum. Along the way, he reconnects with old school friends and his family, who force him to ask himself profound questions of personal and national history. Over long, wandering days, the narrator compares present-day Lagos to the Lagos of his memory, and in doing so reveals changes that have taken place in himself.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs
Pearl Cleage
On Sale Date: April 8, 2014

Summary:  Though born and raised in Detroit, it was in Atlanta that Cleage encountered the forces that would most shape her experience. Married to Michael Lomax, now head of the United Negro College Fund, she worked with Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first African-American mayor. Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs charts not only the political fights, but also the pull she began to feel to focus on her own passions, including writing—a pull that led her away from Lomax as she grappled with ideas of feminism and self-fulfillment. This fascinating memoir follows her journey from a columnist for a local weekly (bought by Larry Flynt) to a playwright and Hollywood script writer, an artist at the crossroads of culture and politics whose circle came to include luminaries like Richard Pryor, Avery Brooks, Phylicia Rashad, Shirley Franklin, and Jesse Jackson. By the time Oprah Winfrey picked What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day as a favorite, Cleage had long since arrived as a writer of renown.