Guest Author - Khara Aisha

The Best-Kept Secret and Too Much of a Good Thing, by Kimberla Lawson Roby. (Together, I call it The Scandalous Adventures of Curtis Black!)


I have a close friend who is a pastor at a black church, so I could not help but to ask him if this crazy Pastor Curtis Black that I’ve been reading about is based on anything real. Curtis Black, the star of author Kimberla Lawson Roby’s novels The Best-Kept Secret and Too Much of a Good Thing scares me a little. But, I’ve got to admit, he’s the kind of character an author would be compelled to write about.


He’s certainly got surface appeal. Reverend Curtis Black is an intelligent, charismatic, handsome, and successful black man. He’s devoted his life to God (I guess that depends on how you define “devoted”) and his spirited sermons inspire church folk all across the country. At the same time . . . Curtis has slept with most of the women in his congregation, plus a few at neighboring churches . . . and a few more across the country. He lies to everyone. He steals from the church. And to cover his tracks, he has also become a master at scheming -- all designed to keep his wives and his congregation in the dark, and to keep himself immersed and in women and thousand-dollar bonuses.


Of course, Pastor Black’s bad deeds are constantly threatening to catch up with him. In fact, from time to time, they knock him flat on his lying, cheating, stealing arse. (Otherwise, there’d be no interesting story.)


Curtis lost his first wife, Tanya, and was booted from Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago after his obsession with money, power, and women was revealed to his family and his congregation. (I didn’t read the first book in this serious, Casting the First Stone, and I have no intention of doing so. I already know how it ends.) But Curtis managed to get another chance at success. In Too Much of a Good Thing, we fast-forward five years and Curtis is pastor of Truth Missionary Baptist Church, serving as a spiritual guide for a over three thousand people. Curtis is making five thousand dollars a week (not including gifts and any other money that he manages to divert for his own use). Of course, there is a down side – Curtis isn’t on good terms with his ex-wife, he’s neglecting his sixteen-year-old daughter, Alicia, and he’s cheating on and mistreating his sweet and trusting second wife, Mariah. Poor Curtis often prays for the strength to resist temptation, but his prayers are never quite answered. Finally, one of his women – in fact, the same woman who was involved in Curtis’ first downfall at Faith Missionary – isn’t taking Curtis’s attempts to “let her go” very well. She lashes out, both with words and with more tangible weapons, and she hits her target. Curtis is so, so busted, and (almost) every one in his life is feeling deceived and betrayed. Don’t worry about Curtis, though. He doesn’t let it get him down.

On to the The Best-Kept Secret. Now Reverent Black has moved from Chicago to a northwest suburb called Mitchell, Illinois. Curtis is with his third wife, Charlotte, and pastor of his very own church, Deliverance Outreach. Curtis is fighting the same old “temptations” every day, and this time he seems to be winning. He’s been faithful and honest to both the church and to Charlotte for two years – both “firsts” in his book. He’s even driven the same luxury SUV for three whole years, and he’s managed to live without the luxuries of his old life. Curtis is even writing a book titled (and I’m not joking here) How to Have Almost Everything You Want. With his beautiful young wife and his seven-year-old son, Curtis is feeling pretty content with his solidly middle-class lifestyle. He wants to spend as much time as he can with them both – so much that he urges Charlotte to give up her cherished job as a paralegal at a top law firm to work full time, by his side, at Deliverance Church. But Charlotte (Oh, did I mention that Curtis slept with her and got pregnant when she was 17?) isn’t happy. When she agreed to marry Curtis, she was sure that he was going to be able to offer her the same material trappings that he’d offered his other wives. Curtis’s middle-class package is sorely deficient. So night after night, Charlotte tells Curtis that she has to work late for the partners at her law firm. But the reality is that she’s sleeping with Curtis’s closest friend. Charlotte actually has quite a few skeletons in her closet, so it seems that Curtis may have finally met his match. When the dust settles, Charlotte is vowing to stay on the straight and narrow, but Curtis has given up on being faithful. Can you smell a sequel?


Two books (three if you read the first one) and somehow Curtis still does not seem to have learned anything. (Sigh. Men. ) Overall, Curtis was interesting to read about, and I may be curious enough to read the next segment of his ongoing saga. But I’ll probably just get it from the public library. Don’t get me wrong -- this is an intriguing, well-paced story, and I think that a lot of people will love it. I just didn’t love it, and I figure I can watch television soap operas if I need this much drama in my life. The writing is clear and precise (of course, I think all published works should be fairly clear and precise), but otherwise nothing special. And I wasn’t able to visualize, relate to, or sympathize with any of the characters. I’d like to say that the story just wasn’t real, but my friend the pastor says that there really are ministers like Curtis Black out there. Goodness, that’s an image that gives me a chill.