Day late and a dollar short, A

Author: McMillan, Terry

Viola's husband Cecil has walked out on his family for the last time. Their four adult children just can't seem to get their acts together either.


New York: Viking, 2001, 448 p.

Booklist Review:

After several years, McMillan is back with her distinctive style of unveiling the trials and mishaps of modern-day life for black folks. This time she focuses on the Price family: mother, father, three daughters, and a son in various stages of various life crises. Age and disappointment with her life and the lives of her children have driven Viola into a strident bitterness, and she has driven away her husband of 38 years with her constant criticism and cynicism. Cecil still loves Viola but accepts his banishment and starts over with a younger woman and her three small children. The Price children--Paris, Charlotte, Lewis, and Janelle--struggle with sibling jealousies, marital infidelities, child abuse, alcohol, and drugs. They have grown apart since all but Charlotte moved from Chicago to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and time and distance aggravate divisions among siblings and parents. Each of the children finds it hard to let long-maintained personal defenses down, even when their lives fall apart. Paris, the oldest and the “perfect one,” can’t reveal her loneliness since her divorce; addicted to painkillers, she maintains a punishing career schedule. Confronted with the fact that her second husband has been molesting her teenage daughter, Janelle has to choose between financial security and protecting her daughter. A strong matriarch, Viola struggles to hold the family together while she loses the softness within that had held her marriage together. McMillan has each family member tell Price history from his or her own perspective until the family reassembles after Viola’s death. McMillan fans will be thrilled by her comeback.

(Reviewed November 15, 2000) -- Vanessa Bush

Publishers Weekly Review: Viola Price is the truth-telling, trash-talking Las Vegas matriarch at the center of McMillan's eagerly awaited new novel. As the book begins, Viola is in the hospital recovering from a devastating asthma attack, and she's decided to turn her life around, even if it means causing her large, unruly clan a little discomfort. Lewis, Viola's only son, is a drifter, handicapped both by his genius IQ and his alcoholism. Janelle, the youngest child, is perpetually searching for the perfect career, while ignoring signs that her 12-year-old daughter is in trouble. Viola's relationship with her perpetually angry middle daughter, Charlotte, is so volatile that Charlotte periodically hangs up in the middle of phone conversations, while Paris, Viola's eldest, appears to be brilliantly successful, but is actually desperately lonely and has developed a dependency on pills to maintain her superwoman act. To add to the confusion, Cecil, Viola's husband of 40 years, has moved in with his girlfriend, Brenda, a welfare mother pregnant with a child that may or may not be his. The story of how the family puts it back together is told from the perspective of all six main characters, and McMillan moves easily and skillfully from voice to voice. The characters are not entirely sympathetic--like Viola, McMillan (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) doesn't sugarcoat the truth--but knowing their weaknesses does make their acts of courage all the more meaningful. This is a moving and true depiction of an American family, driven apart and bound together by the real stuff of life: love, loss, grief, infidelity, addiction, pregnancy, forgiveness and the IRS. (Jan. 15) Forecast: Gutsier and less glitzy than How Stella Got Her Groove Back, McMillan's latest has perhaps the broadest appeal of any of her novels. A major national advertising campaign, national publicity, a TV and radio satellite tour and a 12-city author tour will get the word out and drive the book toward the top of the charts. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal Review: McMillan's fifth novel introduces the Price family with the matriarch Viola surviving another major asthma attack. As her husband, Cecil, and four adult children rally around to support her recovery, the family's problems begin to surface. Paris, the oldest daughter and the most "together" on the outside, is secretly dependent on prescription pain killers. Then there's Lewis, the alcoholic with lots of "book sense but no common sense"; Charlotte, who is starved for attention; and Janelle, the baby, who can be led by anyone who says "go." Although McMillan develops her characters thoroughly, the plot feels rushed at the end, which, in fairy-tale manner, leaves everyone happy and satisfied. This, however, is the book's only fault. Otherwise, it is another of McMillan's dark comedies (if a bit grittier than usual) that explores family life using witty dialog from a very colorful cast. For popular and African American fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/00; for Terry McMillan readalikes, see The Reader's Shelf, p. 200.--Ed.]--Emily Jones, "Library Journal" Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ A great big family with "nothing in common except blood."
Viola Price, 55, is a barbecue entrepreneur, mother of four, and grandmother many times over, thanks to the four children she "had so fast they felt more like a litter, except each one turned out to be a different animal": Paris is a successful caterer and cookbook author with a taste for the best in life, including men; Charlotte, a tough businesswoman, owns several Chicago Laundromats; Lewis is an amiable alcoholic with rheumatoid arthritis; and Janelle, a housewife, is forever taking courses in interior decorating. When a sudden, severe asthma attack lands Viola in the hospital, the clan gathers in Las Vegas to be near her, eager to help and of the belief that their father's unexpected desertion triggered the attack, even though their mother insists that it happened because she was, as usual, worrying about them. Which doesn't change the fact that Cecil Price says he just walked out when he couldn't take one more minute of her bossing and bad temper. Viola insists that she threw him out, but, regardless, Cecil is no more to her than a "bad habit" she's had for "thirty-eight years." To others, he's an aging hipster, with a blossoming paunch and an outmoded Jheri curl mocked by all—not that his new flame, a "welfare huzzy" with three kids by different men, cares. Viola, though, has had it: she doesn't want Cecil back, not in this life or the next. Anyway, the children have other things to worry about: Paris is a pill-popping workaholic; Charlotte's a control freak; Janelle seems to be oblivious to her own daughter's emotional problems, and Lewis is just plain drowning in a river of troubles. Nonetheless, Viola isn't shy about offering advice, and she gives everyone an earful—a favor they return. The reunited Prices squabble, swap life stories and some nitty-gritty philosophy, and get to know the best and the worst about each other all over again. Then they chip in to buy their ailing mother new furniture and a fabulous cruise to nowhere, until a second, fatal asthma attack fells Viola. Her legacy: four poignant, hilarious letters, one for each of the grown children she loved so fiercely.
Great storytelling with one catch: no plot. But McMillan's trademark earthiness and wonderful dialogue more than compensate. This bestselling author (How Stella Got Her Groove Back, 1996, etc.) has a rare gift for creating living, breathing people on the page.
(Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2000)



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0451211081 : Paperback
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0141802847 : CD - Audio
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• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 044671

Disappearing acts

Author: McMillan, Terry

He was tall, dark as bittersweet chocolate and impossibly gorgeous, with a woman-melting smile. She was pretty and independent, petite and not too skinny, just his type. Franklin Swift was a sometimes-employed construction worker, not quite-divorced daddy of two. Women confused his program, so he was leaving them alone. Zora Banks was a teacher, singer, songwriter. Her musical career was just about to take off, and she was taking a break from heartbreak. Then they met in a Brooklyn brownstone, and there could be no walking away.


New York: Viking, 1989, 384 p.

Publishers Weekly Review: McMillan's first novel Mama was highly praised; critics compared the author to Zora Neale Hurston. Naming the heroine of this second novel Zora may have been intended as an homage to that also gifted and black writer, but despite an abundance of flash and energy, this book lacks the depth and breadth to which McMillan aspires. This is a love story between Zora, an independent, aspiring singer who is said to teach junior high school (we never really see her at work) and Franklin, a sometimes-employed carpenter with an estranged wife and three young children (they're vague props). Life has been unkind to these star-crossed lovers, but they're both survivors. McMillan threads her politics through the narrative and her characters occasionally lapse into dialogue more appropriate for a position paper than conversation. In that sense, and it's not necessarily a bad one, this is an old-fashioned kind of novel, the kind with a Message. But in her effort to achieve authenticity, the author bombards readers with four-letter words, and the effect is both irritating and distancing. Though, indeed, real people talk that way, the question is: Do we want to read a novel with such relentlessly scatological dialogue? In the end, however, readers who are willing to immerse themselves in this gritty slice of life will count it an edifying experience. 25,000 first printing; movie rights optioned by Tri-Star. (Aug.)

Library Journal Review: By the author of Mama (LJ 1/15/87), this second novel is a boy-meets-girl story from the black perspective. Franklin is an on-again, off-again construction worker trying to get his life on a firmer foundation. Zora is a music teacher and would-be singer. They meet and start a relationship that initially seems ideal. Soon, however, problems emerge. Franklin's ego has never recovered from his destructive mother's abuse, and the repeated blows the oppressive white society dishes out make him increasingly depressed and hostile. The relationship begins to fall apart. Zora and Franklin have to grow a long way alone before they can come back together. This easy-to-enjoy novel will certainly touch readers who identify with the situation. It's a pity that McMillan's lively narrative is marred by occasional woodenness and that she has a penchant for stating what should be inferred by the reader. Movie rights have been sold, so this could be a biggie.-- Janet Boyarin Blundell, Brookdale Community Coll., Lincroft, N.Y.

Kirkus Reviews As in her affecting first novel, Mama (1986), McMillan once again takes her strong and likable black characters through an obstacle course of booze and bad luck--and has them emerge scathed, but hopeful. Zora Banks, a music teacher and would-be singer, meets tall, handsome Franklin Swift, a construction worker, as she is moving into her new apartment in Brooklyn. The attraction is instantaneous--and mutual. Before they quite know how it happened, they're living together and trying to work out the separate pieces of their lives. Franklin has been separated from his wife for six years, but he's still not divorced. Zora is recovering from a series of bad romances. Franklin can't keep a job. Zora wants to quit teaching and start singing. Franklin drinks too much. Zora has epilepsy, which she regards as a shameful secret. Tensions mount when money runs short. Franklin's self-confidence plummets. And Zora finds herself pregnant--for the second time--with Franklin's child. In alternating chapters, McMillan lets her characters tell their own stories, and their voices ring strikingly true--although Franklin's raunchy opening monologue does the book no favors. What comes across loud and clear is the strength of the bond between these two characters, no matter how ragged it gets from the friction of everyday life. And things do get ragged before they get better. Zora, fearing for her physical safety, has to sleep with a butcher knife under her pillow and get a court order against her lover. Franklin has to leave home and hit bottom--hard--before he can work his way back up. A tad heavy on the pop-psych (Franklin's mom never loved him, so he has a hard time with women, etc.), but, overall, an honest and stirring story about two people who win every inch of their happy ending--the hard way.
(Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1989)



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0613541715 : Glued Binding
0792799666 : CD - Audio
0613014324 : Glued Binding
0453008437 : Cassette - Audio
0670824615 : Hardcover
0451209133 : Paperback
0451205634 : Paperback - Mass Market
0671708430 : Paperback
0671872001 : Paperback - Mass Market
1568950330 : Hardcover - Large Print
0671993097 : Paperback - Mass Market
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Credits:
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• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 044672

How Stella got her groove back

Author: McMillan, Terry

A woman who unexpectedly finds love wonders if she may actually just be losing her mind.


New York: Viking, copyright 1996, 368 p.


Booklist Review: Stella Payne is a successful 42-year-old investment analyst and divorced mother of an 11-year-old son, Quincy. But Stella has begun to feel that her life needs some "groove." On the spur of the moment, she plans a trip to Jamaica to relax and escape from her routine. She meets a man, half her age, whose honesty and physical charm challenge her perceptions of what is acceptable and force her to rethink and re-prioritize her image of herself and her life. Once she returns from her vacation, she recognizes that her life has only been satisfying because it is what was expected from a woman her age. Stella accomplishes her mission of doing something totally out of character by taking her solo vacation and she succeeds at putting more than just a "groove" back into her life. The stream-of-consciousness narration that is utilized for most of this story is a bit awkward at times. McMillan's style here differs markedly from that of Waiting to Exhale, which brought her much "girlfriend" popularity; yet she just may connect with an untapped readership. ((Reviewed April 15, 1996)) -- Lillian Lewis

Publishers Weekly Review: Her readers may be surprised that, after the gritty, tell-it-as-it-is Mama and Waiting to Exhale, McMillan has now written a fairy tale. Her "forty-fucking-two-year-old" heroine, divorcee Stella Payne, possesses a luxurious house and pool in northern California, a lucrative job as a security analyst, a BMW and a truck, a personal trainer and an adorable 11-year- old son-but no steady guy. On a whim, Stella decides to vacation in Jamaica, and she narrates the ensuing events in a revved-up voice, naked of punctuation, that alternates between high-voltage energy and erotic languor. Romance comes to Stella under tropical skies-but there's a problem. Gorgeous, seductive Winston, the chef-trainee with whom she enjoys passionate sex (explicitly detailed), is shockingly young: he's not quite 21. Naturally, Stella wonders if he really loves her; endless soul-searching and a few tepid complications occupy the remainder of the narrative. When Stella loses her job, it's no sweat; she has enough savings to maintain her lifestyle. When fate throws two other gorgeous men her way, she immediately decides they are boring and isn't tempted for a minute. Meanwhile, her intense preoccupation with feminine deodorant sprays and the smell of women's public bathrooms is rather strange, to say the least. McMillan's expletive-strewn narrative accommodates such musings, however, and readers who have been yearning for a Judith Krantz of the black bourgeoisie-albeit one with a dirty mouth and a more ebullient spirit-will be pleased with this fantasy of sexual fulfillment. 100,000 first printing; major ad/ promo; first serial rights to People and Essence; BOMC main selection; film rights to 20th Century Fox; author tour. (May)

Library Journal Review: Stella is a 42-year-old single mother and successful securities analyst who has all the trappings of the yuppie lifestyle. To find her "groove," she goes to Jamaica-but the Jamaica she visits is at best uninteresting. Nothing here convinces the reader that the island is an exotic vacation spot; McMillan's valiant attempts at describing the countryside are weak, and even Stella's choice of meals consists exclusively of pasta. The author could have done wonders with her character but instead fails woefully. Stella's wide-eyed innocence and naivete do not match the rest of her persona. She is fraught with contradictions, and her dialog is childish. Even the romance that develops between Stella and Jamaican native Winston is boring and lacking in energy. Readers will find it difficult to become engrossed in the story; this reviewer came away feeling that McMillan rushed and failed to write a worthy follow-up to her popular Waiting To Exhale (LJ 5/1/92). Purchase where there is a demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/96.]-Corinne O. Nelson, "Library Journal"

Kirkus Reviews McMillan (Waiting to Exhale, 1992, etc.) takes it easy with this tossed-together tale of a 42-year-old black female professional who falls for a young Jamaican cook. The love story provides a suitable frame for the author's trademark charm and credible sense of black middle-class values, but sloppy prose and a single, rather solitary protagonist fail to give readers the synergistic magic of the earlier book. Stella Payne has it all--a charming 11-year-old son, a beautiful house north of San Francisco, and a high-paying job as a financial systems analyst. So why isn't she happy? For three years--since her divorce from the man who talked her into abandoning her art-furniture business in favor of a more lucrative career--Stella has had no serious love interest in her life. When her son, Quincy, flies off to visit his father, workaholic Stella spontaneously signs up for nine days alone at a resort in Jamaica. The last thing she expects to find is an unquenchable passion for a 20-year-old chef's assistant; and on her return home, she discovers that she can't quite relegate her happy thoughts of Winston Shakespeare to the vacation-fling portion of her memory bank. So Stella arranges for Winston to visit her in San Francisco--where the easygoing boy charms her son, her sisters, and her friends, and even talks Stella into dumping the stock exchange and returning to her artist's life. Despite Stella's repeated protests that Winston must be out of his mind, there are few serious barriers to this May-October love affair. Long, run-on, train-of-consciousness sentences give the impression less of the characters' mental states than of a hastily written novel. One hopes McMillan will follow her heroine's example and slow down a little on her next book.
(Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1996)



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Stella got her groove back
Groove back


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0451209141 : Paperback
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0613025016 : Glued Binding
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• Hennepin County Public Library
• Novelist/EBSCO Publishing
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• TID: 044673

Interruption of everything, The

Author: McMillan, Terry

The perfect wife and mother of three grown children, Marilyn Grimes copes with the problems of midlife as she struggles to recall some of her own postponed dreams and reinvent her marriage, friendships, family, and herself.


New York: Penguin, 2004, 400 p.

Booklist Review: Forty-four-year-old Marilyn feels as if her life is spiraling out of control. She has a husband who is adrift in his career and is showing all the signs of having an affair. Marilyn is also juggling a troublesome live-in mother-in-law, a mother who may be developing Alzheimer’s, and a foster sister who is battling drug addiction and neglecting her two children. Meanwhile, she must struggle with her own personal decisions: should she continue working part time at the craft store or heed her long-neglected dreams of a career in art? Should she stay married to boring Leon, the engineer, or take up again with her first husband, who is suddenly back on the scene and available? A pregnancy scare intensifies her need to separate her roles as a caregiver and as a woman with her own identity. She finds solace and help from her girlfriends and an unlikely source--her mother-in-law. McMillan’s inimitable style is on display in this novel about a woman facing midlife crises on every front.
-- Vanessa Bush (BookList, 04-15-2005, p1413)

Publishers Weekly Review: Bestseller McMillan (A Day Late and a Dollar Short) does what she does best in her long-awaited sixth novel. Her candid, spirited narrator is Marilyn Grimes, a 40-something wife and mother who's beginning to feel unappreciated by her family and underwhelmed by her 25-year marriage. With her three kids in college, Marilyn works part-time at a crafts store, feeds her neglected creative muse with various artsy projects, and jaws with her friends in their good-natured regular "Private Pity Party." Having always been there for others???her engineer husband, Leon; her drug-addicted sister, Joy, and Joy's two kids; her live-in mother-in-law, Arthurine; and her mother, Lovey???Marilyn wonders what it would be like to think of her own needs for once. Meanwhile Leon's questioning his professional future, his marriage and his fashion sense (he buys a Harley and starts dressing "like a chubby old hip-hopper"). As they seek their own solutions, Marilyn discovers she's pregnant, Lovey shows signs of Alzheimer's, Arthurine begins dating, Joy struggles to get sober and Marilyn's ex-husband reappears and awakens old feelings. With her trademark ability to write thought-provoking tales inspired by the lives and loves of contemporary African-American women, McMillan offers another novel sure to resonate with readers grappling with the questions Marilyn poses to herself. Agent, Molly Friedrich. (July) --Staff (Reviewed May 30, 2005) (Publishers Weekly, vol 252, issue 22, p35)

Library Journal Review: /* Starred Review */ Marilyn Grimes, age 44, is angry, whiny, and perhaps perimenopausal. With three children in college, a boring husband, a live-in mother-in-law, and her own mother showing signs of dementia, she finds little joy in her suburban California world. Just when she comes up with an escape plan???graduate school???her life is interrupted yet again. Marilyn finds out she's pregnant and that her husband, Leon, is leaving for a month-long men's retreat in Costa Rica. During his absence, Marilyn ricochets in several directions but finally confronts her biggest enemy???herself. Girlfriends Paulette and Bunny, mother-in-law Arthurine, and sister Joy play significant cameo roles as this no-holds-barred, dialog-driven story tackles numerous contemporary issues, most notably our perceptions of aging. With twists on familiar themes, irreverent humor, and a heroine who has more backbone than we initially thought, McMillan's latest (after A Day Late and a Dollar Short) brings it all back home. This is life-affirming women's fiction delivered by one of the best in the field. Destined for the best sellers lists, the book belongs in most popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/05; BOMC alternate.]???Teresa L. Jacobsen, Santa Monica P.L., CA --Teresa L. Jacobsen (Reviewed May 15, 2005) (Library Journal, vol 130, issue 9, p104)



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Mama

Author: McMillan, Terry

'It aint' that I don't believe in God. I just don't trust his judgment.' Mildred Peacock is the tough, funny, feisty heroine of 'Mama,' a survivor who will do anything to keep her family together. In Mildred's life, men disappear as quickly as paychecks. Not since Alice Walker's 'The Color Purple' has a black woman's story been portrayed with such power.


Houghton Mifflin, 1987, 260 p.

Reviews for this Title:
Publishers Weekly Review: Mildred Peacock is broke and has no future prospects. She lives in a dilapidated house in a poverty-stricken Detroit suburb. She has a violently abusive, alcoholic husband who can't hold a job but keeps a mistress. She has five children, though she's only 27. She's black. One would think that a book about this woman's life would be dreary. The surprise of this accomplished first novel, however, is its zest and its extraordinarily positive portrayal of an impoverished family's struggle to overcome its problems. The book will be compared with Alice Walker's The Color Purple, partly because of the fine quality of its prose and partly because some of the thematic materialwhat it's like to be a poor, black woman in Americais similar. But where Walker's novel describes how things used to be, McMillan's narrative is firmly contemporary. Mama is a solid performance. (January 15)

Library Journal Review: Mama , a first novel, tells of a proud black woman, Mildred Peacock, and her five children. After a violent fight, Mildred throws her drunken husband out of the house. On her own in the poor town of Point Haven, Michigan, Mildred scrimps and drinks, works and goes on welfare, struggling to raise her kids and keep her sanity. Mildred's closest bond is to her oldest daughter, Freda, and their lives parallel each other's progress from despair to hope. The book's main weakness is that the author apparently could not decide what to leave out. She also has not decided who her audience is: at times she seems to be writing to blacks, at other times to be explaining things to naive white readers. Although the story has power, it lacks focus and a clear point of view. Janet Boyarin Blundell, MLS, Brookdale Community Coll. Adjunct Faculty, Lincroft, N.J.

Kirkus Reviews A spirited black woman raises five kids single-handedly in this heartfelt but predictable first novel. Mildred Peacock finally gets the strength to dump her boozing, womanizing husband Crook, but where does that leave her? It's 1964, she has five young children, and lives in the black ghetto of the small Michigan town of Point Haven. But Mildred is nothing if not resourceful--she works as a cleaning woman, a helper in a nursing home, on the assembly line, even, briefly, as a prostitute. She also marries twice more (unsuccessfully) and begins to drink heavily and take "nerve pills." Meanwhile, her eldest and most promising daughter, Freda, moves to L.A., gets a degree, and starts making something of herself; soon the entire family, including Mildred, follows. McMillan makes short, unsatisfying stabs at following the progress of all the Peacocks, but what she's really interested in is charting Mildred and Freda's twin descents into alcoholism. Freda is now in New York, going on binges for days and trying to make it as a free-lance writer; Mildred finally drags herself back to Point Haven and starts drinking at nine in the morning. Suddenly, they both wise up, put the cork in, but their turnabout is unconvincing stuff--as is most of the textbook drunkenness leading up to it. But McMillan is on-target, funny and moving, when she describes Mildred fight-flag for survival, forcing her family to accept her as she is while watching out for them with the ferocity of a mother lion. In all, then, an uneven but promising debut.
(Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1986)



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0671993097 : Paperback - Mass Market
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0453008658 : Cassette - Audio
0792799771 : CD - Audio
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0451216717 : Paperback
0671884484 : Paperback - Mass Market
0395399742 : Hardcover
0792717767 : Paperback - Large Print
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0792722396 : Cassette - Audio


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• Baker & Taylor
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• Copyright 2005, VNU Business Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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• TID: 044674

Waiting to exhale

Author: McMillan, Terry

Four African American women console and support one another in a complex friendship that helps them face the middle of their lives as single women.


New York: Viking, 1992, 409 p.


Booklist Review: A saucy and savvy tale about four black women and the changes the men in their lives put them through. McMillan, author of "Mama" and "Disappearing Acts", nails down dialogue with sure and steady strokes and handles a five-octave range of emotions without bathos or sensationalism. Each of the novel's four strong, articulate, and high-energy women are in their mid-thirties and successful in terms of everything but relationships. Savannah is single, bright, and ambitious, recently moved to Phoenix as a PR executive for a cable television station. Bernadine, one of Phoenix's wealthier buppies, is in the midst of divorcing her husband of 11 years who turned out to be a crook and a creep. Robin, an insurance underwriter, is on the wild side and no stranger to creeps herself, while Gloria owns and runs a hair salon and has raised her teenage son by herself. These women epitomize what it means to be a girlfriend, endlessly teasing, commiserating, and celebrating together as they navigate through the shark-infested waters of romance. McMillan pulls no punches when she introduces us to assorted philanderers, liars, thieves, and heart breakers who play their games in and out of bed. Her heroines are holding their breath, waiting for the elusive blessing of love and learning the true value of independence and pride. Already slated for serialization in "Essence" and chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club selection, this boldly authentic, comic, and bittersweet novel will be in demand. ((Reviewed Apr. 1, 1992)) -- Donna Seaman

School Library Journal Review: YA-- Savannah, Gloria, Robin, and Bernadine are black, 30-something, and all waiting for the right man to come along. What sustains them during their successes and disappointments is their tight bond of friendship. McMillan fully develops her characters with an incisive ear for dialogue; this brings readers close enough to laugh with, scream at, ache for, and care deeply about each woman. Robin and Savannah narrate in the first person; Gloria and Bernadine's stories are told in the third person. While alternating chapters relate each person's story, the transitions in voice are smooth. The writing style is deceptively easy and highly readable, but the language and sexual frankness are more suitable for mature YAs. In addition to spinning a good story, the book illustrates how people sharing and being supportive of one another create a survival network in a tough modern world. Funny and poignant.-- Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Publishers Weekly Review: A racy, zesty, irreverent and absorbing book with broad mainstream appeal, McMillan's third novel (after Mama and Disappearing Acts ) tells the stories of four 30ish black women bound together in warm, supportive friendship and in their dwindling hopes of finding Mr. Right. Savannah, Bernadine, Robin and Gloria are successful professional or self-employed women living in Phoenix. All are independent, upwardly mobile and "waiting to exhale"--to stop holding their breaths waiting for the proper mate to come along. (Bernadine is married, but her husband walks out on her for a white woman as the novel opens.) They also share speech patterns that some readers may find disconcerting: they utter profanities with panache, unceasingly. Indeed, the novel's major drawback may be the number of times such words as shit , fuck and ass are repeated on every page. These women have a healthy interest in sex, while deploring the fact that most of the men they meet are arrogant, irresponsible and chronically unfaithful. Each character is drawn with authenticity and empathy, and McMillan pulls no punches about their collective bad judgment in choosing partners for romance. After many vicissitudes, two of the heroines find love, but until then McMillan keeps us constantly guessing about which members of her lively quartet will be thus rewarded. There's nothing stereotyped in her work here: it is fresh and engaging. 100,000 copy first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; first serial to Essence; BOMC and QPBC selections; author tour. (June)

Library Journal Review: Like McMillan's previous novels, Disappearing Acts ( LJ 7/89) and Mama ( LJ 1/87), her new effort features a predictable plot, prose that often falls flat, and a narrative that lacks depth. Four African American women living in Phoenix devote most of their energies to searching for the one good black man who will make their dreams of the perfect partner and lover come true. Unsurprisingly, Savannah, Bernie, Gloria, and Robin all kiss several toads, but their trials and errors never arouse much interest. Far stronger is the author's sharp, often humorous depiction of the strong bonds among the four friends, their relationships with their families, and their community activities; readers will regret that McMillan did not develop these areas further. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.-- Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Kirkus Reviews /* Starred Review */ Talk about timing! With relations between African-American men and women in the spotlight as never before, here comes McMillan's report from the front: her bawdy, vibrant, deliciously readable third novel (Mama, Disappearing Acts) is the story of four black women Mends and their frequently disastrous encounters with black men. The four are in their mid-to-late 30s, middle-class women making good money, and they live in Phoenix. Savannah, who has everything she wants except a man, has just moved from Denver, partly to be clone to best friend Bernadine, whose 11-year-old marriage has collapsed. Super-successful "buppie" (black yuppie) John has tricked Bernadine every which way, but his greatest betrayal is crossing the color line to snare a California blond; now Bernadine must raise their two kids alone. Her friends Robin and Gloria are not having any better luck: Robin is a backsliding bubblehead whose study of astrology has not cured her weakness for "pretty men with big dicks" who use and abuse her, while the only male in overweight, matronly Gloria's life is her teenage son Tarik, a source of both anxiety and pride. We watch these women in a swirl of motion: working, partying, dishing, dating, and consoling each other on their misfortunes with men. Their consensus is that "black men play too many games" and are terrified of making commitments, even if they're buppies ("riffraff comes in all kinds of packages"). Two points here: First, McMillan's novel is not indiscriminately bashing brothers--there are good men out there (both Bernadine and Gloria have fine prospects by the end), and women cannot escape all the blame (Savannah's inability to say the three magic words costs her dearly). Second, these women do not mope. The story's best scene has them falling-down drunk at Gloria's hilarious birthday party; indeed, they are as timeless as Molly Bloom or the Wife of Bath in their robust sensuality. A novel that hits so many exposed nerves is sure to be a conversation-piece: it has heart and pizzazz and even, yes, the sweet smell of the breakthrough book.
(Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1992)



Features about this author or title:

1. Author Read-Alike - Terry McMillan


Other related features:

1. Annotated Book List - Popular African-American Fiction

2. Annotated Book List - Women's Lives and Relationships: A Selection of Classic Titles

3. Author Read-Alike - Eric Jerome Dickey

4. Author Read-Alike - Terry McMillan


ISBNs Associated with this Title:
0670839809
0816156174 : Hardcover - Large Print
0816156182 : Paperback - Large Print
0453007775 : Hardcover - Audio
0671864173 : Paperback - Mass Market
045121529X : Paperback - Mass Market
0451217454 : Paperback
0453009603 : Cassette - Audio
0613014332 : Glued Binding
0671501488 : Paperback
0671537458 : Paperback - Mass Market


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• Added to NoveList: 20010101
• TID: 044675