Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > McMillan, Terry - John Skow (review date 6 May 1996)

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John Skow (review date 6 May 1996)

SOURCE: "Some Groove," in Time, Vol. 147, No. 19, May 6, 1996, pp. 77-8.

[In the following review, Skow discusses McMillan's literary success and the wide popularity of her fiction.]

News flash: Terry McMillan's big-bucks new novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back is a silly wish-fulfillment fantasy that barely qualifies as beach literature. Heroine Stella Payne is a beautiful, single, "forty-bleeping-two-year-old" black investment analyst who, though sexy and rich, hasn't had a date in months. Tired of waiting for a black prince to materialize in a paid-for Lexus, she flies to Jamaica on vacation, meets Winston Shakespeare, a tall, golden-brown, bashful 20-year-old assistant cook at a resort hotel, falls in love, and brings him back home as a live-in souvenir.

Correction to news flash: Stella isn't fantasy after all. Author McMillan, 44, single, renowned for griping raucously about...

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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