20 January 2020
If you grew up on Terry McMillan's books, you know that she's the doyenne of a particular type of black women's lit. It hinges on sisterhood and love but doesn't shy away from confronting how hard it can be to find happiness.
Black Gen Xers immersed in McMillan's worlds as they came of age know, so well, the soapy middle-class fantasies she created, and though her characters are representative of a narrow slice of the black middle class, they appeal across racial and gender lines, and have done so for decades. This may be why her audience spans not just her boomer contemporaries but their children and in some cases grandchildren.