What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day... By Pearl Cleage

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day...
By Pearl Cleage

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day is a debut novel written by author Pearl Cleage. In the novel, Cleage presents Ava Johnson who empowered her skills and intelligence to open a hair salon in Atlanta, Georgia. Her profitable business allowed her to own a large apartment and to know Atlanta’s most influential people. A decade after living an extravagant life in Atlanta, her marvelous career and wonderful plans came to a smashing point. Ava has tested positive for HIV.

She decides to start a new life in San Francisco. Before she does that, Ava returns home to Idlewild, Michigan, to visit with her widowed sister Joyce. Ava wants to spend some relaxing time with her sister, but she soon finds out that all the problems of the big city have invaded the quiet small towns. She becomes involved in her sister's social work, the Sewing Circus, to educate Idlewild's adolescents on such things as sex, drugs and pregnancy. Ava discovers that her family and friends need her presence more than ever. She cannot make a turning point, especially when Ava Johnson finds her self falling deeply in love.
Throughout my reading, I did not find some assertions rather convincing. Overall, the character Ava Johnson is not one of my favorite. I admire Joyce’s personality better than her. The reason is that Ava makes some statements on such things as being a victim of not receiving enough sympathy. Ava Johnson was in full control when she involved her life with many sexual partners. In other words, it was her personal preference, and no one forced her to get involved in immoral actions.

“I don’t think anything I did was bad enough for me to earn this as the payback, but it gets rough out here sometimes. If you’re not a little kid, or a heterosexual movie star’s doomed, but devoted wife, or a hemophiliac who got it from a tainted transfusion, or a straight white woman who can prove she’s a virgin with a dirty dentist, you’re not eligible for any no-strings sympathy”(Cleage, 4). Her argument in this statement is accurate, but does not apply to her condition at all. She should confess and apologize, even if it is an uncomfortable action, for driving her human freedom in the wrong direction. At least she should not lie to herself by saying that she is free to do whatever she wants with her life, even approaching areas that might lead to ending the precious life. Well, she said it here: Discomfort is the always a necessary part of the process of enlightenment” (Cleage, 4). I believe that no human being has the right to hurt him/herself, although the world is clearly occupied of such creatures.

The thing that strikes me most about this book is that it teaches us hope, and it teaches us the power of faith and love. Loving yourself can easily heal your problems. Pearl Cleage makes a point that loving yourself leads you to love others; it leads you the love of two sisters, the love of a woman and man, and the love of community. Faith helps us fight evilness and immorality.

Even though, the book does not seem to be a happy one, and it has presented quite a few overwhelming subjects, the end happens to host optimistic meanings and joyful emotions.