Audiobooks Narrated by Pearl Cleage

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs

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 writing—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. “Here’s the thing about this book: it will make you braver, you’ll want to live your life better and make a difference, you’ll become more forgiving. My copy is all underlined and dog-eared and I’ll probably read it two more times…at least.”—Jane Fonda

Pearl Cleage (Author), Pearl Cleage (Narrator)

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Baby Brother's Blues

When Regina Burns married Blue Hamilton, she knew he was no ordinary man. Regina enjoyed a circle of engaging friends and her own work as communications consultant, but she especially relished the company of her husband, who never ceased to be a source of passion and delight. Then everything changes. Frightened women are showing up in West End, seeking Blue’s protection from lovers who have suddenly become violent. When the worst offenders begin to disappear, the speculation seems to implicate Blue and his long-time associates. Now that Regina is pregnant, her fears for Blue’s safety have become an obsession that threatens the heart of their relationship. Returning to the Atlanta neighborhoods of her last two novels, Pearl Cleage has crafted a warm, witty novel that illuminates the core of every woman’s hopes and dreams.

Pearl Cleage (Author), Pearl Cleage (Narrator)

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We Speak Your Names

In the tradition of Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman, best-selling author Pearl Cleage brings us an inspiring, celebratory poem for all women, destined to become a classic. Cleage considers the poem, which served as the centerpiece at Oprah's Legends Ball, as a continuation of an oral tradition that encompasses the entire history of the African-American experience. The praise poem acknowledges the legacy of those who have gone before and a realization "that we are part of something better, truer, deeper."

Pearl Cleage, Zaron W. Burnett, Jr. (Author), Pearl Cleage (Narrator)

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Babylon Sisters

Catherine Sanderson and her daughter, Phoebe, have always been as close as a mother and daughter could be, except for one secret between them: the identity of Phoebe's father. Catherine, busy working with refugee and immigrant women through her small firm, Babylon Sisters, has taken on a powerful new client. She doesn't have much time for Phoebe's complicated questions of paternity-that is, until Phoebe's real father, B. J., a renowned investigative reporter, shows up in town to work on a story connected to Catherine. Now she must finally reveal the truth she's been withholding from Phoebe for eighteen years, bringing them all together in ways they never could have imagined.

Pearl Cleage (Author), Pearl Cleage (Narrator)

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