The Humble Housewife 2008 Virtual Book Tour

SORMAG Online Tours welcomes The Humble Housewife 2008 Virtual Book Tour featuring the novel, Sweet Georgia Brown by bestselling author, Cheryl Robinson!

This new novel is about a woman named Georgia, who is fed up with her husband Marvin, a popular radio personality, after 11 years of marriage. It's not just because she suspects he's having an affair, or because she's suddenly expected to raise his thirteen-year-old daughter, Chloe-whom she never knew existed. It's because of the comments he makes about her weight, their marriage, and their sex life...on national radio! Now, to save their marriage, Marvin invites Georgia to the station for an on-air rebuttal, having no idea it will launch her career. Or that what began as a battle at home will now be a blistering war for all to hear on national radio!

Disagreements and conflicts are going to arise in most marriages. But how couples choose to resolve those conflicts will determine if marriages are going to be harmonious or a battle ground. I found the marital conflict between Marvin and Georgia very interesting and wanted to know how Cheryl came to write about this topic in her new book.

So I asked her:

1. How did you come to chose marital conflict as one of the main topics for your new novel?


2. What message are your really sending to men and women about relationships in this story?

And this is what she had to say . . . .

I was surfing the net and stumbled upon the following article on marital conflict: http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/what-is-marital-conflict-faq.htm. The writer mentioned that, "one writer has stated that marital conflict stems out of unmet needs, wants, and desires. When one person needs or wants something badly enough, and the other person is unwilling or unable to meet that need, resentment grows. Then, if one were to add the power of an unruly tongue, the situation becomes ripe for open conflict."

I thought that example was fairly consistent with what occurred in my latest novel, Sweet Georgia Brown. Georgia Brown was indeed a humble housewife determined to become a household name. She was going through a period in her life where she had an unmet need. Without spoiling it for those who haven't read the book, but plan to do so, I will say that my primary message was that dreams can and do come true and there is no age limit. You are never too old to go after your passion. I started my novel by showing a family that was struggling and I had that family experience a rags-to-riches transformation. And then I asked myself the question, Does money solve all problems? The answer, of course, is no. It can stop the creditors from calling, and afford you the luxuries of life, which I am sure can be nice, but it doesn't buy love. The love was present when the Brown's didn't have money. But after the Brown's strike it rich, so to speak, the love then seems to fade.

Ultimately, I feel that there were two things happening behind the scene of their marriage. Of course, the obvious were the affairs, which on that basis alone Georgia could have felt justified to leave. But she had convinced herself that Marvin was being faithful to her. However, there was also the verbal abuse. I chose to have that abuse become public. It is of my opinion that verbal abuse is often done behind closed doors. Many experts say that verbal abuse is the worse form of abuse because the wounds never heal. The words being thrown out stay in the victim's mind like a broken tape to be played over and over again.

While Marvelous Marvin went to the extreme by airing his dirty laundry on 102 HITZ, there are many people who will take their private family matters to their friends, other family members, coworkers and sometimes strangers, but never to their spouse or significant other. Even though men are supposedly from Mars and women are from Venus, I still believe that we need to figure out ways to effectively communicate in our relationships so that our conflicts won't get so out of hand that our next resort is divorce court. The encouraging news is that as of the last statistical reporting, the divorce rate is down. However, so are the number of people getting married. Why is that I wonder?

What I love most about Marvin's on-air antics are the responses that I receive from men that are being directed to Marvelous Marvin. For those women who are still under the false belief that there are no good men out there, here's an example of what a good man had to say to Marvin:

At 10:42am on February 8th, 2008, Marvin Ellis said…

I'd like to leave a comment about the Georgia Brown, Marvelous Marvin situation. As a husband and father of eight, an author, inspirational teacher, lecturer, musician, teacher and who just happens to share the name Marvin with the character, I have to say that I was pretty disturbed by what I heard. Not only did Marvelous Marvin make all Marvin's look bad but he disrespected a Nubian Goddess or Earth Deity as I like to call them. It has taken our people too long to even begin to replace the fragments of dignity that make us great after years of oppression, humiliation, racism and all the other evils perpetrated on us by what is known as modern society for us to air any personal dirty laundry we have publicly. It seems that "pop culture" relishes in promoting more of the "dirty laundry" from our personal lives than anything truly with substance. It's all the about the dollars and ratings so anything goes in an industry dominated by the "dog eat dog" mentality. I don't agree nor condone any public disrespect of Black women because our sisters, mothers, daughters, aunts, grandmothers and wives have been through too much already for US to give them a bad rap. I personally like thick women so I was extra hurt when MM referred to GB as a cow. We don't do that brother, we don't put our women on front street negatively like that. Ain't enough ratings in the world to make me disrespect my Nubian Sisters!

Peace
the REAL Marvelous Marvin...


Visit Cheryl Robinson’s official website at http://www.cherylrobinson.com/ or blog at http://mybestlife365.blogspot.com/



To join The Humble Housewife 2008 Virtual Book Tour in progress, visit www.thegrits.com/virtualbooktour