Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > McMillan, Terry - Donnella Canty (review date April 1996)

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Donnella Canty (review date April 1996)

SOURCE: "McMillan Arrives," in English Journal, Vol. 85, No. 4, April, 1996, pp. 86-7.

[In the following review, Canty offers high praise for Waiting to Exhale.]

Move over Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, make room for Terry McMillan. McMillan will need a lot of room on the bench of elite, female African American writers if her latest novel, Waiting to Exhale, is any indication of her true talent. In addition to Waiting to Exhale, McMillan has two other novels to her credit; Mama (1987) and Disappearing Acts (1980) were McMillan's first two fictional endeavors. She also edited Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction (1990), a very popular collection of short stories.

Waiting to Exhale quickly established McMillan as a major force among contemporary female fiction writers. The novel lived up to the praises of my colleagues...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Thulani Davis (review date May 1990)
   2. Charles R. Larson (review date 23 September 1990)
   3. C. J. Walker (review date September-October 1990)
   4. Publishers Weekly (review date 23 March 1992)
   5. Terry McMillan with Wendy Smith (interview date 11 May 1992)
   6. Charles R. Larson (review date 31 May 1992)
   7. Paula C. Barnes (review date Fall 1992)
   8. Frances Stead Sellers (review date 6 November 1992)
   9. Darryl Pinckney (review date 4 November 1993)
   10. Donnella Canty (review date April 1996)
   11. Publishers Weekly (review date 1 April 1996)
   12. Malcolm Jones Jr. (essay date 29 April 1996)
   13. John Leland (essay date 29 April 1996)
   14. James Wolcott (review date 29 April 1996)
   15. Liesl Schillinger (review date 5 May 1996)
   16. John Skow (review date 6 May 1996)
   17. Richard Bernstein (review date 15 May 1996)
   18. Terry McMillan with Evette Porter (interview date 21 May 1996)
   19. Sarah Ferguson (review date 2 June 1996)
   20. Janet Mason Ellerby (essay date Summer 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright