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Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage
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Things I Should Have Told My Daughter

Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs

$17.96

Retail price: $19.95

Discount: 9%

This title is not eligible for purchase with membership credits. Why?

Narrator Pearl Cleage
Length 11 hours 10 minutes
Language English
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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.

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 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.

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. Things I Should Have Told My Daughter charts not only the political fights but also the pull she began to feel to focus on her own passions, including writingā€”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 to a playwright and Hollywood scriptwriter, 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.

In the tradition of greats like Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and Nora Ephron, Cleage's self-portrait raises women's confessional writing to the level of great literature.

Pearl Cleage is an award-winning playwright whose playĀ Flyinā€™ WestĀ was the most-produced new play in the country in 1994 and a bestselling author whose novels includeĀ What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day,Ā I Wish I Had a Red Dress,Ā Some Things I Never Thought Iā€™d Do, andĀ Baby Brotherā€™s Blues, among others. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pearl Cleage is an award-winning playwright whose playĀ Flyinā€™ WestĀ was the most-produced new play in the country in 1994 and a bestselling author whose novels includeĀ What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day,Ā I Wish I Had a Red Dress,Ā Some Things I Never Thought Iā€™d Do, andĀ Baby Brotherā€™s Blues, among others. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Reviews

ā€œHereā€™s the thing about this book: it will make you braver, youā€™ll want to live your life better and make a difference, youā€™ll become more forgiving. My copy is all underlined and dog-eared and Iā€™ll probably read it two more timesā€¦at least.ā€

ā€œA journal is the perfect place to watch oneā€™s self grow. Pearl Cleageā€™s changes are many in this gift of record-keeping during the early, middle, and (a few glimpses at what may be) the later years of her life. The honesty and humor, insight, and determination to show up authentically is pure Cleage.ā€

ā€œPearlā€™s courageous, candid recollections of the ups and downs of her life remind us of our human nature, at times, to doubt and judge ourselves too harshly. Her wit and authenticity allows us to look at our own lives with a bit of levity, compassion, and freedom.ā€

ā€œAn enjoyable, nonstop read. Familiar and profound. Pearlā€™s memories feel like my own. Her lies, lessons, and love affairs wash over me like water, sage, and lavender. She makes me feel at home in her life.ā€

ā€œCleageā€™s extraordinary experiences, deep social concerns, passionate self-analysis, and personal and artistic liberation, all so openly confided, make for a highly charged, redefining read.ā€

ā€œA sampling of playwright and novelist Cleageā€™s journal entries over twenty years, from 1970 to 1990, as a young journalist, feminist, civil rights activist, wife, and mother delineates a long, difficult journey toward self-realizationā€¦By turns frank, and wide-eyed, Cleageā€™s entries reflect a fulsome, tender spirit, hungry for authentic experience, eager for love.ā€

ā€œThereā€™s an urgency to Pearl Cleageā€™s narrationā€”as if her life depends on every word she shares from her journals of the 1970s and ā€™80s. Speaking rhythmically, passionately, she says exactly whatā€™s on her mind and soulfully talks to listeners as if theyā€™re good friends. Sheā€™s colorful with her language and candid in toneā€¦Poetically employing repetition, Cleage emphasizes the joys and frustrations of life and of coming into her own womanhood.ā€

ā€œCleageā€™s observations explode with joy, anxiety, anger, and, of course, honesty; her style is breezy and casual but the content is complex. Her fans will embrace this work, and all readers interested in womenā€™s memoirs, especially those focused on the struggle against racism and sexism, will be moved by this title.ā€

ā€œThe great virtue of this seemingly unedited journal is that it gives a vivid sense of a real lifeā€™s varied natureā€¦A warts-and-all self-portrait rendered in juicy, robust prose.ā€

ā€œ[Things I Should Have Told My Daughter] shows an intelligent, resilient, remarkable woman bearing witness to the sometimes insane world of politics, to friendships, love, and American culture. Her reflections often made me laugh out loud. Cleageā€™s journals are spellbinding!ā€

ā€œFrom the moment I opened this book, I knew that I was reading an old friend who would inspire us with her ā€˜flat-footed truthsā€™ and intellect. I knew her memory would intersect with mine in her walk toward Black womanhood and freedom. I laughed, cried, leaned back on my eyes and hummmmed.ā€

ā€œPearl Cleage is a truth teller, a soothsayer, and a brilliant storyteller. She tells it like it is, like it was, and like it will be. Things I Never Told My Daughter is an amazing account of Cleageā€™s development as a woman, a mother, and an artist. This is real talk delivered without ego or pretense. This is the book I have been waiting for.ā€

ā€œA juicy book. A fun book. Sometimes really sad. But always triumph. Pearl Cleage is at it again. Making us think and feel. Pour a glass of good red wine and indulge yourself. We, who knew it was there and knew it had to come out, need no excuse. We can just sit and turn page after wonderful age. Pearl, whether or not your kid needs it, we do. Things I Should Have Told My Daughter is another gem. Iā€™m wearing it proud.ā€

ā€œSister Citizen Pearl Cleage opens up her treasure chest of wit, wisdom, and passion and offers us a lifeline through the late twentieth century. In this brilliant, inspiring memoir, [she] lives out loud and in living color. And before you know it, Sister Pearl has changed your world!ā€

ā€œThis rich, honest memoir is a gift to all daughters, all women, looking to make their way through life with joy, intelligence, and panache. Thank you, Pearl Cleage, for sharing.ā€

ā€œCleage gives a history lesson you didnā€™t get in school.ā€

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