I Wish I Had a Red Dress

June 18, 2001
How do you follow up a debut that's a New York Times
bestseller, an Oprah Book Club Selection that's still in the Amazon top 100 two years after publication? If you're canny like Cleage, author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, you write a sequel, of course. Returning to Idlewild, Mich., the setting of her first book, Cleage takes up the story of Joyce, big sister to Ava, who was the focus of the original and who is absent from this one, traveling the country with her husband, Eddie. Fortysomething Joyce, a dedicated social worker, has always tended to be an optimist, despite her overwhelmingly tragic life. Her mother committed suicide on her wedding night, her two children died young and her beloved husband drowned five years ago. She's since taken to wearing black, but now she feels ready to wear red again, hence the title. The opportunity to do so comes in the form of Nate Anderson, a new student counselor in town who sees in Joyce the romantic woman who's still beneath the surface. Meanwhile, there's a lot going on at the Sewing Circus, the space Joyce uses for social work. Inspirational, idealistic and spiritual, the book is also sometimes judgmental, and a decidedly "women good, men bad" tone occasionally creeps in; some readers may find this unappealing. The bulk of the book is more about .problem solving—specifically, Joyce's efforts at helping young African-American women become "free women"—than it is about romance. (July)Forecast:As with many of the follow-ups penned by the Oprah-anointed, this effort will disappoint more than please the acolytes who made the first novel such a huge success, perhaps affecting Cleage's sales down the road. Major ad/promo; 7-city author tour; audio from Harper Audio.