A Conversation with Pearl Cleage, author of Baby Brother’s BluesQuestion:You were a successful playwright before you wrote your first novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. . . . Now you write both plays and novels. Do you always know right away which of those two forms is best suited for the story you want to tell? Is it just that some ideas are too big for the stage?
Pearl Cleage:I never intended to start writing novels. I had an idea that wouldn’t fit on the stage. There were too many settings, too many characters, too much time passing. I decided to try and write it as a novel. It was a little intimidating at first since I was working in a new form, but after I decided to write the book in the first person–to let the main character tell the story–I was more comfortable. Writing What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day . . . was almost like a long monologue. That appealed to the playwright in me! At this point, I've written five novels and I feel like I’m just getting as comfortable with the form as I am with playwrighting. I still have one play in my head that I just haven’t found time to write, but I still intend to get to it. I love the immediacy of theatre, but I love equally the intimacy of the communication between a novelist and a reader. Fiction is more of a one-on-one communication, while theatre depends on an experience that is shared. I enjoy working in both forms.
Q:What Looks Like Crazy was an Oprah selection–not bad for a first try! Still, I imagine the experience could be a little overwhelming for a young writer. What effect did it have on you and on the writing of your second novel, I Wish I Had a Red Dress?
PC: I had been writing professionally for many years when my book was chosen by the Oprah’s Book Club. What Looks Like Crazy was my first novel, but I was not a beginning writer since I already had a dozen produced plays to my credit. It was a great experience from start to finish, and it introduced my work to thousands of new readers, many of whom took the time to write me letters about the book and how much they enjoyed it. All of that was wonderful, but the truth is, each book is a new experience. The success of the last one, no matter how great that success, doesn’t really make the experience of writing the next one any easier. You still have to sit down in front of that blank sheet of paper and find your story. That never changes!
Q:Did you always want to be a writer? Who were some of your influences?
PC:I always knew I was a writer. When I was two years old I was already telling stories to my sister, who was only four. When she learned to read and write in first grade, I made her teach me what she knew. After that, I kept little notebooks with my stories in them. Langston Hughes was an early influence on me. My mother used to read us sections of his autobiography, The Big Sea, the way other mothers read fairy tales. I grew up wanting to travel the world like Langston and write about my adventures, while joyfully maintaining my identity as an American Negro.
Q:On your website, you coin the word “sisterspeak.” Can you talk a bit about what you mean by that and put it into the framework of your writing?
PC: I know that African American women have a way of communicating with each other that encompasses all that we are, including, but not limited to, race and gender. I call that language “sisterspeak” because it is specific to us. It is part of what binds us as sisters and allows us to connect across lines of class and region based on our shared blood memories.
Q:Do you consider yourself to be writing in any particular tradition, and for any particular audience?
PC:When I sit down to write, I am less concerned with audience than I am with finding the truth of the story I am telling. Most of my stories have African American women at the center because I am an African American woman! I believe Alice Walker when she says “you should be the center of your world.” I don’t think by that she means that African American women should only write for and about other African American women. I think she means that you should start with the human being that you are and know that if you tell your story as truly and deeply as you can, it will resonate with other human beings, no matter what their race or gender might be. How else to explain how I can be so moved by the work of Maxine Hong Kingston and Frank McCourt, who are not, have never been, and never will be African American women? That being said, I absolutely consider myself to be part of the African American literary tradition that encompasses a passion for literary excellence with a commitment to social change. I don’t see the two things as being in conflict.
Q:How rigorously do you plot your books before sitting down to write them? Do your characters ever try to take control and steer the book in unexpected directions? Do you let them?
PC:I do a lot of pre-writing. I develop character charts for each character so that by the time I start to write, I know them intimately. I outline the entire plot before I start writing. I am not one of those who says “I just start writing and let the characters take me where they want to go.” That would drive me crazy! I have to know where they are going so I’ll know how to get them there most efficiently.
Q:Tell us about your new novel, Baby Brother’s Blues. Is it a sequel to last year's Babylon Sisters?
PC:Baby Brother’s Blues is my third novel set in Atlanta’s West End neighborhood. The book picks up the lives of the two main characters of Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do, Regina and Blue Hamilton. They got married at the end of that novel, and at the beginning of this one, Regina has just found out she is carrying their first child. Her impending motherhood makes her reexamine the role that Blue plays as the neighborhood's de facto godfather. As she struggles with the questions this raises for her and for their family, the neighborhood continues to struggle with ways to maintain the peace and security that define it. Also returning in this book are Regina's Aunt Abbie, the self-described “post-menopausal visionary,” Precious Hargrove, an ambitious politician with her eye on city hall, her son, Kwame, and his wife, Aretha, and Peachy Nolan, a former bandmate of Blue's who is playing an increasingly large role in Abbie's life. Rounding out the cast of characters are General Richardson, a lifelong friend and associate of Blue's, Brandi Harris, an exotic dancer who has plans of her own, and Wes “Baby Brother” Jamerson, a wild card whose entrance into West End sets a chain of events into motion that no one could have predicted.
Q:A lot of your novels feature recurring characters and settings, and the new one is no exception. Was this continuity something you planned from the first? Did you set out to tell the story of a whole community in addition to the stories of individual men and women within that community?
PC:I didn’t really plan to set three of the novels in the same neighborhood, but as I finished each book, I realized there were other characters in the same community who had their own interesting stories to tell. I love to see the overlapping nature of their lives and their continuing stories. Since they all live in the same small community, it isn't hard to imagine that they would know each other and show up in each other's lives over time. It's fun for me to write about West End since I live in southwest Atlanta, and with each book I can also describe the changes going on in my neighborhood.
Q:Do your plays also share characters and settings?
PC:My plays are all set in different places and different times. I have never written a play about West End, and I don’t think I ever will. The neighborhood works so well in fiction I know I will set at least one more book there.
Q:I found the character of Blue Hamilton intriguing. As the protector of Atlanta's West End neighborhood, taking the law into his own hands, he reminded me of a superhero, a Batman—like figure. To some characters, he’s a hero; to others, a thug. Why does Blue choose to act outside the law? Doesn’t this choice exact a price on him and those around him?
PC:Blue is a very complex character, and his role in the neighborhood is complicated. Part of why he is so interesting is because he does take the law into his own hands, but he is careful to only do so within the context of his own very strict code of morality and honor. Part of what I’m exploring in this new book is the price Blue pays for keeping his neighborhood safe and peaceful. For those who think he should not take the law into his own hands, the book poses the question: what should he do? Whose job is it to keep communities safe? What is the role of good men in controlling the behavior of "the misbehavin’ men” referred to in Zaron Burnett’s quote at the front of the book? I admire Blue for taking responsibility for his neighborhood, and I invite my readers to look at him and think deeply about what he is doing and why. Regina is on this same journey of understanding during the course of Baby Brother’s Blues. When she asks him what he says when people call him a gangster, he responds that he is not a gangster, but a "free man” who is determined to stay free. He's a fascinating character to write about, and I’ve enjoyed looking at him more specifically in this book.
Q:Why did you give Blue his distinguishing physical characteristic of blue eyes, a trait usually associated with Caucasian characters? I thought it was interesting that the most powerful man in a novel in which there are no white characters nevertheless possessed this “white” attribute.
PC:Blue’s eyes are part of what make him mysterious. They are unexpected in a man who is described as so dark-skinned, but certainly not unprecedented. The legacy of slavery is a legacy of race mixing, and many African Americans have blue or green eyes, just like we have a wide variety of skin colors and hair textures. His eyes are not intended to be a Caucasian feature, but something which sets him apart. The book explains his blue eyes as a way to make sure Regina didn’t walk past him in this lifetime without recognizing him. Because of his eyes, she’d have to stop and give him a second look long enough to realize they were meant for each other. This was correctly predicted by Aunt Abbie, who told Regina that she would meet a man with “the ocean in his eyes” in Atlanta, and she did!
Q:The world of Baby Brother's Blues is clearly our world–the United States has been hit by terrorists and is fighting an increasingly controversial war in Iraq. Indeed, the title character, Baby Brother, is a soldier who comes home on leave and then goes AWOL. Why, in a novel that takes such pains to be realistic, did you make the decision to avoid using white characters even for minor roles?
PC:This question makes me smile. I didn’t “take pains to avoid using white characters.” There were simply no white characters in the story I was telling! Would you find it unusual that Joyce Carol Oates would set a novel in an upper middle class white neighborhood and no black folks would come into the story? Was it strange that there were no black characters in Angela’s Ashes? It's the same thing in my books. There are many communities in America that are not racially integrated, and West End is one of them. It is entirely realistic for people to live in this area and not encounter any white people at all for days, weeks, months, unless they leave the neighborhood. There were also a number of minor characters who were not identified by race at all, such as Precious’ secretary, the policewoman who directs people to Captain Kilgore’s office, the doctor at the Macon hospital where Lee’s grandfather is, Lee’s cousin's girlfriend, the members of Baby Brother's unit in Iraq, the soldier with the LSD on the plane. All of these characters were not identified racially and could have been white, Latino, Asian, etc. I do not know your racial identity, but I think your question grows out of the fact that you didn’t see yourself in any major characters. We all do that. Franz Fanon describes the experience of sitting in a movie theatre as a person of color and hoping that when the lights go down, he'll see a character that reflects his reality. “I look for me,” Fanon said. For many white Americans, the experience of entering a fictional world where there are no white characters is a little disconcerting because it is unfamiliar. I think this is a good thing. As Ava says in What Looks Like Crazy, discomfort is always an important part of the process of enlightenment.
Q:From your research for this novel, and your personal experiences, do you think the war in Iraq is having a disproportionate effect on the African American community? How typical are Baby Brother’s experiences in Iraq and at home?
PC:I think the war in Iraq is having a terrible effect on all the Americans who are fighting in it, as well as being devastating to the Iraqi civilian population. I am strongly opposed to the war, which we entered searching for invisible weapons of mass destruction and continue to fight for reasons that our own president cannot articulate clearly. I think Baby Brother’s experiences in the war are very typical. I based them on news reports, so I know that these things happen daily. His experiences at home are not so much a result of external things like racism, but of his own lack of discipline and willingness to take responsibility for himself and his actions.
Q:The “down-low” lifestyle plays an important part in the plot of Baby Brother’s Blues. The novel makes it seem like a common though secretive and shameful behavior among black men, with powerfully negative effects that extend beyond the men involved to their wives and families. How accurate is this portrait?
PC:The phenomenon of “down-low” behavior has only recently become the topic of aboveground conversation and analysis but has long been a subject of concern within the African American community. The HIV/AIDs epidemic has made the dangers of this lifestyle to the wives and families of these men more evident, since many of these men are having frequent and unprotected sex. This unsafe behavior exposes their wives to a danger many of them never consider. This is the case with Kwame and Aretha. She has no idea that he is also having sex with men. I am writing about the problem in the African American community, but this is not a problem that is limited to our community. American homophobia makes many American men reluctant to admit to their sexual preferences for fear of reprisals in their personal and professional lives. The recent film Brokeback Mountain is the story of two cowboys who live their lives “on the down-low” because they are unwilling to face the consequences of their homosexuality in the communities they live in. Each one marries, although they are in love until one dies.
Q:How do you feel about the novel being issued by the One World imprint of Random House, which is directed toward African American readers? On the one hand, it's great that mainstream publishers are acknowledging that there is a readership of color, so to speak. But on the other hand, it worries me that a kind of segregation is being introduced into the publishing world and into bookstores, and that readers of all races will miss out on the experience of discovering new writers from divergent backgrounds.
PC:I think my responsibility as a writer is to write as well and as truthfully as I can about the characters that interest me. The desire for “crossover audience” has nothing really to do with the creative process and is of no interest to me. I will say that I frequently meet women who are Asian, white and Latina who have found my books, read them, and enjoyed them just like my African American women readers, so I don’t worry about it. I know that if I tell my specific black woman stories as well as I can, they will strike a chord in other people of all races because they are human stories.
Q:Recently a provocative op-ed piece by writer Nick Chiles ran in the New York Times under the title “Their Eyes Were Reading Smut,” a play on the title of Zora Neale Hurston's most famous novel. Chiles writes critically of “the sexualization and degradation of black fiction,” a process by which serious fiction has been swallowed up by so-called "ghetto fiction"–stories, as he puts it, that “glorify and glamorize black criminals” and that amount to little more than “pornography for black women.” Is Chiles overreacting, or is there genuine cause for concern?
PC:I think the concern is justified. These books are not well written and contain lots of terrible stereotypes of black women and men, lots of glamorized drug use, lots of violence against women and mutually exploitive relationships and unrelenting materialism. The covers alone are enough to make any serious writer go home and put a cold towel on her head! I don’t think these books lead readers into anything better and generally only reinforce some of the worst things we’ve already seen done to death in the gangsta rap videos. I think we have to depend on readers to seek out better quality work no matter how mercilessly these so called urban stories are pushed at them.
Q:How does the fictional Atlanta of your books compare to the Atlanta in which you live and work?
PC: My fictional Atlanta is very much like the Atlanta I live in, except that we don't have a Blue Hamilton, so we have to be a little careful about strolling around at midnight! Otherwise, I try very hard to make it true to the neighborhood as I know it. From the Krispy Kreme to the busy street vendors, the lovingly restored Victorian houses and unapologetic female political power, this is the Atlanta I know and love!
Q:There are a number of supernatural and metaphysical elements to Baby Brother's Blues–reincarnation, life after death, witchcraft, to name a few. Do these elements reflect your personal beliefs?
PC: These elements reflect my own interests and curiosities. I find it interesting to use magical elements in the book as if past lives and spells were a natural part of life. I think there are many things that we cannot see or explain that are as real as the things we can touch. Mixing up all these elements in a realistic story is fun for me and I hope for my readers.
Q: Has there been any interest in your books from Hollywood?
PC: There are no current plans to make the books into films.
Q: What are you working on now?
PC: I’m letting my creative mind fully release the cast of characters from Baby Brother’s Blues before I start on a new book this summer. Presently, I hold the Cosby chair in the humanities at Spelman College, where I'm teaching in the Women's Studies Center and reading as much as I can. I can't read fiction when I'm writing–too distracting!–so I am devouring as many books as I can before I start working again.