When a natural storyteller like author Terry McMillan is speaking, it’s best to get out of her way. She fills the spaces with her rapid-fire observations on, well, just about everything. And when she’s really warmed up she’ll recount a long-ago conversation, word for word, her voice mimicking each speaker so crisply that the dialogue sounds like it’s happening in real time.
It’s this ability that made her 1992 novel, “Waiting to Exhale,” a seminal hit in popular fiction and subsequent box office success. Savannah, Bernadine, Gloria and Robin, the main characters of “Exhale,” were searching for clothes, good meals and decent men long before Carrie Bradshaw and crew. But now the women from “Exhale” have hit their 50s and life isn’t all slingbacks and cocktails anymore. That’s the set-up for “Getting to Happy” (Viking; 375 pages; $27.95), the just-released sequel to “Exhale.” On Tuesday, McMillan, hosted by the Georgia Center for the Book, will appear at Agnes Scott College in Decatur to read from “Happy.” We spoke with her last week.
Q: You say in the foreword to “Happy” that the women from “Exhale” slipped back into your consciousness after all these years. Why?
A: If I were to be honest I could say that after going through my horrific divorce, I thought about how angry I was, how bitter I was and what it had drained from me. I didn’t like how I was feeling. Then I started observing a lot of other women I knew that had been through their own versions of hell. There were too many out here in that age group that were sad or disappointed with the quality of their lives. So I just thought that we deserve better and our lives aren’t over at 50. And I started thinking about scenarios to tell that story. That’s when it dawned on me, those four women, they are the perfect candidates.
Q: Was it hard to write the sequel?
A: First of all, I had to go back and re-read that book. I never go back and re-read a novel that I’ve written. Nor do I fancy watching that movie every week it comes on TV.
Q: Each woman’s life in this book seems so full, did you ever think that this could be drawn out more as a series or an individual volume on each woman?
A: It’s not so much their personalities that I found so fascinating, and I don’t know if [each of] their lives would warrant a novel. I found them more intriguing as a group, not individuals. I couldn’t even think about what I would do with Gloria for 400 pages.
Q: This book has been optioned for the big screen. Any thought that their lives could make for a series on cable?
A: I have no idea. All I know is that 20th Century Fox bought the rights to this months ago and I’ve co-authored the script with another writer.
Q: You opened a door for a lot of African-American writers, females in particular. But in the past decade, that publishing niche has really shrunk. What happened?
A: Over the years the publishing industry was overspending. Every black author that wrote a book they would pay them these really high advances, then send them on these book tours. If the companies didn’t earn back the advances that they were giving them, then they would lose money. So they stopped doing it. And unfortunately I think it was due in part to what happened with “Waiting to Exhale.”
Everybody wanted to be a best-selling author and publishers were treating young, new and upcoming authors as such and then it didn’t happen. Because everybody wanted to be famous, I think it just got out of hand. I never set out to write to be famous.
Q: Since the release of Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel, there’s been a lot of talk on prominent blogs about the lavish treatment and multiple reviews of white, male authors such as Franzen in major news outlets. This to the virtual exclusion of popular fiction by female writers of all stripes. How do you view that claim?
A: I’ll put it this way, I was shocked when I saw Jonathan Franzen on the cover of Time magazine. Don’t get me wrong. I think Jonathan Franzen is a very powerful, strong, amazing, brilliant writer. But I don’t think Time magazine had the right to deem him “the great American novelist.” That means everybody else just gets short shrift. Especially if you’re a woman. If men write about women, or loving women, they are considered super-sensitive, something special. But when we write about women loving men, it’s chick-lit.
Q: So what do you think about “street lit” or so-called “ghetto lit,” that genre of pulp fiction now aimed at African-American readers?
A: These books are insulting on a lot of levels because there’s nothing redeeming about them. A lot of them are poorly written, unedited and they glorify black-on-black crime, being a ho, being a pimp, being a mack-daddy. I don’t want to read a book about that.
Q: Regarding your very public divorce while you were writing “Happy,” was it at all cathartic or had you already worked through your emotions and buttoned it up?
A: A little of both. I had already started this book when I was upset and angry and wanted to run him over. But then two years ago I forgave him. And now we’re somewhat friends. He’s not my BFF or anything ... but I realized a lot of bad things happen to us when we get older that are outside of our control. But there are things that are within our control and that’s what I chose to focus on.
Q: So, if not happy, are you at least relatively pleased with your life now?
A: I’m ducky, honey.
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Meet the author
Terry McMillan, author of “Waiting to Exhale” reads from and signs her new novel, “Getting to Happy.”
7 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m. Sept. 14. Free. Event is first come, first served. Presser Hall, Agnes Scott College, 141 E. College Ave., Decatur. 404-370-8450, ext. 2225; www.georgiacenterforthebook.org .
Note: Only books purchased on site will be signed.
About the Author
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