Craig Stevens is forty-five years old and a recovering crack addict. Forty-one days clean when the novel opens, his world is rocked when one fateful September morning, 9/11 happens. With everything falling down around him, thoughts of an old love Gazelle come to mind. He sets out to find her, to make sure she s okay. However, the pitfalls along the way don't make it easy. With vivid detail and a gritty landscape, Red Light Green Light is the Butterscotch Blues of crack addiction, taking you through it and beyond...
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A book so memorable it will become a classic in years to come--Midwest Book Review
...a grown-up novel...Full of believable, relatable characters...Just loved it! --Victoria Chrisopher Murray, national best selling author of The Ex Files
Margaret Johnson-Hodge at her best and brightest...delicious. Every page is pure poetry...heartbreak...pain...love. But most of all the poetry of life.--Phillip Thomas Duck, author of Counterfeit Wives
Margaret Johnson Hodge proves once again she is a fantastic writer. With fluid, rich, poetic threads she weaves her story into a solid tapestry. --Evelyn Coleman, author of Freedom Train
Margaret Johnson-Hodge knows she can write!! Her descriptive words makes you feel like you're right there in the scene with the characters; as if you're walking right beside them and being an eye witness to all their pain. --Cydney Rax, best selling author of My Best Friend and My Man
Red Light Green Light is a superbly crafted story honed from the gritty streets of New York City. While this could describe any of one million other tales, what makes this one stand above the crowd is the fact that Margaret Johnson-Hodge brings a genuine noir sensibility to the story and allows you to see through the eyes of Craig as he goes on a search for himself. But the true strength of the piece is the fact that MJH is able to marry a city and a time in our country entrenched with deep social and moral issues to a flawed yet true to life character. It s this marriage that gives this story depth--clarity and sparks. Red Light Green Light is a stellar novel from a clarion voice in African American Fiction. Mrs. Margaret Johnson Hodge. Timmothy B. McCann, national best selling author of Until
...An emotionally stimulating novel...--Shunda Leigh, Booking Matters Magazine
...outstanding... --Angela Reid, Imani Literary Group - Metro Atlanta --Various
...a grown-up novel...Full of believable, relatable characters...Just loved it! ----Victoria Chrisopher Murray, national best selling author of The Ex Files
Margaret Johnson-Hodge at her best and brightest...delicious. Every page is pure poetry...heartbreak...pain...love. But most of all the poetry of life.--Phillip Thomas Duck, author of Counterfeit Wives
Margaret Johnson Hodge proves once again she is a fantastic writer. With fluid, rich, poetic threads she weaves her story into a solid tapestry. --Evelyn Coleman, author of Freedom Train
Margaret Johnson-Hodge knows she can write!! Her descriptive words makes you feel like you're right there in the scene with the characters; as if you're walking right beside them and being an eye witness to all their pain. --Cydney Rax, best selling author of My Best Friend and My Man
Red Light Green Light is a superbly crafted story honed from the gritty streets of New York City. While this could describe any of one million other tales, what makes this one stand above the crowd is the fact that Margaret Johnson-Hodge brings a genuine noir sensibility to the story and allows you to see through the eyes of Craig as he goes on a search for himself.
But the true strength of the piece is the fact that MJH is able to marry a city and a time in our country entrenched with deep social and moral issues to a flawed yet true to life character. It s this marriage that gives this story depth--clarity and sparks.
Red Light Green Light is a stellar novel from a clarion voice in African American Fiction. Mrs. Margaret Johnson Hodge. Timmothy B. McCann, national best selling author of Until
...An emotionally stimulating novel...--Shunda Leigh, Booking Matters Magazine
...outstanding...--Angela Reid, Imani Literary Group-Metro Atlanta --Various
About the Author
Margaret Johnson-Hodge is a national best selling author of several books that have received national acclaim. Two of her novels were up for movie options: Hallmark Hall of Fame considered Some Sunday and Showtime considered A New Day.
In 2002, Publishers Weekly made the following forecast: Johnson-Hodge's popularity continues to grow. Audiences tired of shallow buppie antics will respond favorably to the earthy dramas she describes. In 2004, she was a nominee for Author of the Year.
Red Light Green Light is Johnson-Hodge's 9th published novel. There is always some story inside of me, is how she sees it, and I just try and get it told.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible,
By
This review is from: Red Light Green Light (Paperback)
The effects of 9/11 were devastating to most Americans. For some Vietnam vets, they were transported back in time to a place where they relived the horrors they witnessed in the Vietnam jungle. Families mourned loved ones who were lost and remained undiscovered. For 45 year-old, recovering crack addict, Craig Stevens, it brought up memories of his first love, Juliet Sumpter (Gazelle). It also made his day-to-day life an agonizing struggle between choosing the pipe or sobriety. In Margaret Johnson Hodge's newest novel, Red Light/ Green Light, she vividly describes Craig's perils in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
When 9/11 happened, Craig had 42 days of sobriety under his belt and was well on his way to recovery. When he is told about the Twin Towers falling, his first thoughts were of Gazelle. It did not matter that he had not seen her in 20 years, he needed to find out if she was okay and so he sets out to find her. He winds up in Hempstead at the home of her grandmother, who is also awaiting news of Gazelle's fate. After a few days of no news, Gazelle's grandmother sets off to find her. Craig remains in Hempstead hoping for both of them to return. In Hempstead, Craig is determined to remain clean for Gazelle. He does not want her to see him as he last left her, stealing all their belongings, wild-eyed, crazed and on a drug-induced binge. He tries to remain strong, but temptation by those who mean him no good, a little money and the smell of a crack addict on the bus is too much and his fragile recovery shatters. Disappointing all who were cheering for him to succeed, Craig is back on the streets, searching for that Nirvana. But, there were those who just would not give up on him, and when he comes down from the high, they are there to catch him, but for how long? When is enough enough? I found myself pulling for Craig. I cheered even his smallest steps to stay clean and felt immense disappointment when he faltered. As I read, I wondered what one thing would make a crack addict want to stop. I thought that by having to degrade yourself by fighting rats for food from a dumpster, or selling your thin, dirty mattress for mere pennies or having to hawk the canned goods your parents purchased would be enough, but once on the binge, it means nothing. I have never been able to understand the attraction of this particular drug. A drug that will make you lose everything to chase after a high that you can never obtain, while you lose everything and everyone dear to you. Johnson-Hodge clearly and distinctly describes Craig's quest. I kept thinking one had to have gone through this to give such an authentic account of the life of a crack addict. If you are looking for a well-written street or urban novel this is it, because it can not get anymore real than this story. High five to Ms Johnson Hodge for a excellent, riveting novel. Jeanette APOOO BookClub' Motown Review Book Club
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A SIMPLY DYNAMITE TALE!!!! - CLASSIC ALL THE WAY!!!,
By William Fredrick Cooper "ESSENCE BESTSELLING ... (Bronx, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Light Green Light (Paperback)
While there are many authors in the African-American Literary Community, only a select few possess that rare gift of balancing imagery and dialogue, power-packed narrative and a unique blend of intensity, emotion and struggle. Writers like Colin Channer, Bernice McFadden, Tracy Price-Thompson and Gloria Mailette fill the bill. One of my favorites over the past decade or so is Margaret Johnson-Hodge. Since reading 'Butterscotch Blues', I have been inspired by her attention to detail in the written word. A simultaneous student and admirer of her brilliance, to say I had been eagerly awaiting another effort is an understatement.
Then, suddenly, she steps back onto the literary scene in grand style with RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT, a modern day classic about a Forty something crack addict Craig Stevens, and his daily struggles with reform. Clean for forty-one days but cognizant that the number of days means little, when I say the sobriety issue is a daily battle, it because of excellent emphasis by Hodge in weaving her tale. He attends meetings to help him stay clean and receives strong but tough help from his landlady Miss Raymond and his sponsor Brother Raheim, but when 9/11 comes....My goodness. RED LIGHT GREEN LIGHT, penned in spectacular form, is an excellent thriller in which the readers are brought face -to face with the aftershocks of our modern day American Tragedy. Craig is a unique male protagonist as he struggles with his drug addiction, but especially on the day in history that made many of us here rest uneasy. Having my own personal account of that fateful day only made me appreciate the realism of the tome, and how it affected us all. Rare is the classic tale that can be read 20/30 years from now and still impact us as if perused yesterday; especially in a community that desperately needs change from the microwavable fiction devoid of quality. RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT, by Margaret Johnson-Hodge, is that rare needle in the AA literary haystack that pulls at your soul. Fantastically written, This is a must in your library of classic reads. William Fredrick Cooper (Author of THERE'S ALWAYS A REASON)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200,
This review is from: Red Light Green Light (Paperback)
Crack cocaine has a stronghold on Craig Stevens` life. Craig is a forty-something year old man struggling to combat his addiction. Finding himself doing things he never thought a college-educated man would have to do, Red Light Green Light invites us into a "crack head's" world - including triumphs and failures at recovery.
Leaving no stone unturned about the struggle to overcome addiction, Ms. Hodge delivers a novel complete with drama, romance and spirituality, all under the backdrop of September 11th, when two planes strike the World Trade towers. In this novel in particular, I was able to see how certain events trigger certain emotions within people and sometimes causes them to act, for better or for worse, on those emotions. Margaret Johnson-Hodge writes in a way that will cause readers to feel as if they are right in the scene with the characters. When Craig was on his quest to get his "high", I felt as I was walking right next to him. Details were very vivid and Ms. Hodge's has a no holds-barred approach with this selection. Gazelle, Pernia and Scott share in Craig's recovery process - be it a positive, negative or indifferent influence, they all participate. A central theme in this story is the need for a recovering addict to have a strong support system. In most cases, the stronger the support system, the less likely an addict will relapse. The most important thing in recovery, however, is that the abuser really wants to help themselves. We waste time by helping others that don't help themselves. This in no way signifies that we should give up on them, but we can love a person suffering from addiction from afar and even more importantly, we can always pray for them. I'm still rooting for Craig to stay clean. Every day is a battle.
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