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    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day"
    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day"
    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day"
    Ebook36 pages58 minutes

    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 14, 2016
    ISBN9781535842655
    A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Pearl Cleage's "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" - Gale

      1

      What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

      Pearl Cleage

      1997

      Introduction

      In an interview in Black Issues Book Review, Pearl Cleage reveals that the idea for What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day came from her desire to write about a character whose doctor informs her that she is HIV positive. Cleage was amazed at how many people she saw in denial about HIV and AIDS, so she created a character who has no choice but to deal with it. This character, Ava, not only comes to terms with her HIV-positive status, but she also finds a way to recreate and reclaim her life.

      What Looks Like Crazy is Cleage's first novel. Known for her plays and essays, Cleage felt that this particular story required the novel form to explore the culture of Idlewild and the psychological workings of her characters. Idlewild is an actual city in Michigan that was established after the Civil War as an African-American community. The city was a thriving resort during the 1950s and 1960s, but then it began to decline in popularity.

      Although Cleage began writing What Looks Like Crazy in the third person, she realized that her skills as a playwright would make a first-person point of view a natural choice. She told Black Issues Book Review, As a playwright, I'm used to writing in dialogue.

      When Oprah Winfrey chose the novel as one of her book club selections, sales sharply increased, and Cleage quickly reached a wider audience. In 1998, What Looks Like Crazy stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for almost ten weeks. In 2001, Cleage saw publication of a follow-up novel titled I Wish I Had a Red Dress.

      Author Biography

      Pearl Cleage (pronounced cleg) was born on December 7, 1948, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Doris and Reverend Albert B. Cleage, Jr. She was reared in Detroit, where her father's ministry allowed her to hear speakers such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Cleage graduated from high school and then went to Howard University in Washington, D.C., during the turbulent 1960s. After three years, she transferred to Spelman College in Atlanta, where she graduated in 1971 with a degree in

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