Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > McMillan, Terry - Liesl Schillinger (review date 5 May 1996)

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Liesl Schillinger (review date 5 May 1996)

SOURCE: "Beneath a Jamaican Moon," in Washington Post Book World, May 5, 1996, pp. 1, 8.

[In the following review, Schillinger commends McMillan's strong female protagonist and portrayal of desublimated female desire in How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Schillinger concludes, "women are ready to read about themselves not only as schemers or sufferers, but as the adventurous heroes of their own lives."]

Is a happy woman in charge of her own fate de facto an unsympathetic character—someone people don't want to read about and cannot empathize with? If so, the defenders of serious literature will no doubt join in unison to eject Terry McMillan's rip-roaring new book, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, from the Eden of politically and academically correct approval. Because, in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, no women weep; and Stella, in fact, revels. She revels and even gloats at...

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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