Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > McMillan, Terry - Sarah Ferguson (review date 2 June 1996)

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Sarah Ferguson (review date 2 June 1996)

SOURCE: A review of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, in New York Times Book Review, June 2, 1996, p. 21.

[In the following review, Ferguson summarizes the "uncomplicated" message of How Stella Got Her Groove Back.]

Divorced at 42, with an 11-year-old son and a lucrative job in investment banking, Stella Payne splits her time between a "funky little California castle" outside San Francisco and a cabin at Lake Tahoe. She's got four computers in her office, a personal trainer, a pool and two steam rooms—but make no mistake, it's lonely at the top. "Once you get past the 200,000-a-year mark you are constantly being appraised and as a result always trying to prove your worth," the buppie heroine complains in her infectiously intimate you-go!-girl run-on style. "It's too hectic up here and the race is always on. It's always rush hour but I haven't figured out when to put on my blinker because...

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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