When Terry McMillan walked onto the stage at the Free Library in Philadelphia this week, the packed room of women applauded her. Some jumped to their feet. She was so overwhelmed that she left the stage, came back a few seconds later and dabbed her eyes.
There was love all over the place. These women knew and felt her pain, and they were happy that she had come through it still looking like herself (in that way-out-there ‘fro and braces).
And so she had, she told them. She didn’t like the ugly and angry person she had become after being betrayed by the man she loved, after learning that he was gay (she says they are friends but she doesn’t trust him). No man – in fact, no person – should push you that low, Terry (don’t you feel close enough to call her by her first name) said.
And that’s what her new book “Getting to Happy” is about: Finding your center. It’s the same focus of We Are Black Women: Learning to be the best you are, putting you first, and not being afraid or ashamed or embarrassed to do so. Doing what makes you happy.
Terry isn’t an auction find, but if her book helps other women “find” themselves, that’s even better than what I come across on the auction tables.
“Getting to Happy” came out this week. It takes place 15 years after “Waiting to Exhale,” that sisters’ novel read by women who hadn’t picked up a book since their school days. “Happy” tells the story of what happened to Savannah and her three good friends – Gloria, Bernadine and Robin.
The new book was optioned for a movie six months ago and she turned in the screenplay this week, Terry said. But it’ll be nine months or more before anything starts to happen with it, she said. Three of the actors from the 1995 movie based on “Waiting to Exhale” – Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine and Lela Rochon – are ready to go, but she’s not too sure about Whitney, whom we know has had her own problems.
Terry said that she was surprised that Hollywood was interested in a book about women over 50. We all know that movies these days are made for teenagers, and young people in their 20s and early 30s. Those of us many years beyond that rarely get to see ourselves and our lives on the screen, especially us black women. I love Meryl Streep but …
Terry still has the street streak in her, the spunky tell-it-like-it-is attitude that we admire in some of our girlfriends but that we can’t pull off ourselves. It gives authenticity to her characters to such a degree that we can relate to them. Listening to her read was like listening to her talk. She read the first chapter of the book, Savannah’s story – the writing was so funny (we laughed at phrases she coined and ones she didn’t) and so natural that you swore you knew Savannah.
The woman on stage wasn’t Savannah, but Terry McMillan, different but the same. There appeared to be a maturity and sophistication that I didn’t see some years ago when I heard her speak for the first time at a National Association of Black Journalists Conference right after “Waiting to Exhale” was published. Terry’s pushing 60 (but doesn’t look near it) and with age comes a blossoming of knowledge and wit that broadens us all.
“Getting to Happy,” Terry told us, was sparked by her own issues, which she found were some of the same confronting other women. Women whose lives had not turned out the way they thought or whose health made them feel old before they were. It made her sad, she said. But life doesn’t have to be that way. You can recover and heal, as she says in an interview on the Root website.
Terry appears to have taken charge of her life again.
Here are some of her pronouncements:
“Save yourself first.”
“Nobody should own your life except you.”
“Your happiness is the best revenge.”
Her terrymcmillan.com website, she noted, was about more than her and her books. It’s still a work-in-progress, but it also offers resources on health, prisoners, art, spirituality and more.
My friend Sandra and I purchased the new book (my friend brought five of her Terry McMillan books) and the author signed them, as well as obligingly took pictures with each of her fans. That’s me with her in the “artsy” photo above.
Terry McMillan is likely coming to your city or one near you. Be sure to check her out and read her book. After listening to her read the first chapter, I wasn’t sure where the story was headed but I’m eager to find out.
