Introduction

As a conservative Southern housewife, if anybody had told Prissy she would one day be driving around town with a drunk, stoned black man named Willie sitting in her back seat while she begged------no, ordered him into her house for the night, she would have told them they were nuts. But it happened.

Set in Tallahassee, Florida, Far Outside the Ordinary is a poignant love story chronicling, in southern-style, the period in Prissy’s life when, on an ordinary day, her young husband was given less than a year to live during a routine physical where it was discovered he had brain cancer. She exhausted Western and Eastern life-saving treatments to save him, from medicine men to an FDA indicted doctor seen on Dateline. Both tragic and comic, the story is told from two sides of the same house: The back room where Boone, her beloved husband is dying, and the front room where his black caregivers, Cornelius Duhart, and Sallie Madison, are working around the clock to save their family. She stands in the middle, a spectator observing events far outside the boundaries of her once ordinary life.

This is a story of people from two cultures, black and white, and how love and respect for each other’s differences grew from the work of supporting a man at the end of his life. The seriousness is tempered with humor, the pulling together of her community of friends and of strangers. The dire situations give permission for the crossing of class lines and help one realize we all have more similarities than differences.

Far Outside the Ordinary is also a story of happily-ever-after, a fairytale, and how it can come disguised and when least expected. When her high-school boyfriend reappeared in her life, she learned old love has no expiration date. There are second chances with a first love.

You may need to remind yourself that this is indeed a memoir while reading about angels of death, high fashion, world travel, shady medical clinics, political high-society, miracle treatments, and long-lost loves.

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Excerpt

The distinguished man of color standing on my front porch was a sight to behold. Debonair and slim, he was a conspicuous presence. He wore a fitted silk suit. A point of pink handkerchief peaked from his jacket pocket, matching the bright pink socks that crested above his black, pointed shoes. This gentleman was the very model of cultivated elegance and charm, looking as if he had been created in Hollywood. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. People use humor for many different reasons. How does Elrod use humor through her story? To intercept her pattern of grief? To deflect her feelings?

2. Who was your favorite character? Why?

3. The lifestyle described in this book is quite different from the way most people live, with glamorous friends, expensive homes, beach houses, designer clothes, and in-home care-giving help. Yet none of that kept Elrod from ultimately experiencing profound grief. Did the author’s seemingly privileged life color your feelings about the book at all? Did that change after reading it?

4. How much of a person’s character would you say is shaped by the times in which they live?

5. Reread the conversation between Elrod and Dr. Care from "Tribe and True" on page 50. What choice would you have made, based on his recommendation?

6. Is there a turning point you recognize in the book, a point where Elrod changes over the course of the story?

7. Have you ever experienced a loss, or life changing event, similar to the authors? Had you read this book during your own crisis, might it have helped your own healing? Given you hope? Why or why not?
8. Does the cover image translate the story graphically? Why or why not?

9. Do you think the title “Far Outside the Ordinary” fits the book?

10. Can you imagine this book transitioning from page to stage? Would you want to see the play or movie?

11. The last sentence of the book is “I was home.” What does that mean?

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