Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of Doris Cleage née Graham), a teacher, and the late civil rights activist Bishop Albert Cleage. Cleage teaches drama at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Cleage is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman.

Her novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a 1998 Oprah Book Club selection. Pearl Cleage (born December 7, 1948) is an African-American author whose work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been widely recognized. In the tradition of giants such as Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, and Maya Angelou, Cleage’s self-portrait raises women’s confessional writing to the level of fine literature. This fascinating memoir follows her journey from a columnist for a local weekly to a playwright and Hollywood scriptwriter whose circle came to include luminaries Richard Pryor, Avery Brooks, Phylicia Rashad, Shirley Franklin, and Jesse Jackson. Things I Should Have Told My Daughter charts not only the political fights but also the pull she began to feel on her own passions-a pull that led her away from Lomax as she grappled with ideas of feminism and self-fulfillment. At the time, married to Michael Lomax, now head of the United Negro College Fund, she worked with Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first African-American mayor. Though born and raised in Detroit, it was in Atlanta that Cleage encountered the forces that would most shape her experience. In this revelatory and deeply personal work, Cleage takes readers back to the 1970s and ’80s, retracing her struggles to hone her craft amid personal and professional tumult. In addition to being one of the most popular living playwrights in America, Pearl Cleage is a bestselling author with an Oprah Book Club pick and multiple awards to her credit, but there was a time when such stellar success seemed like a dream. In this inspiring memoir, the award-winning playwright and bestselling author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day reminisces on the art of juggling marriage, motherhood, and politics while working to become a successful writer.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage