Through her new book Getting to Happy, best-selling author Terry McMillan is inviting her readers back into the lives of the characters that made her a household name more than 15 years ago via Waiting To Exhale.
In the book Robin, Savannah, Gloria and Bernadine triumph through an entirely new set of trials, personal setbacks and losses in love during a more seasoned stage of their lives.
Thanks to Left Banks Books, Next Wednesday (Sept. 22), McMillan will be in St. Louis as a part of a national book tour for Getting to Happy, the surprise sequel to Exhale that hit shelves last week. She’ll discuss the evolution of the characters whom women of all colors and age groups grew to love and relate to back in the mid-1990s.
But why allow us another visit with the ladies? What was the motivation behind it?
The decision to travel back down that road and redirect these women to joy began McMillan’s own misery.
Her marriage was the subject of an autobiographical fairytale (subsequently adapted into a blockbuster film). The blind-siding turn of events that would lead to its end was a nightmare.
“After my divorce, I was really bitter and angry and all of that,” McMillan said. “It took a few years to get past it.”
Not only were the failed nuptials the most painful of betrayals, but it played out in the media so thoroughly that there is no point in even mentioning the details.
“But something happened to me,” McMillan said. “I realized that anger and bitterness can block a whole lot of goodness.”
As she worked through her epiphany – and the instant replays of the scandal surrounding the scandal continued to make headlines – something even more compelling happened.
“Thousands of women would come up to me and share their stories,” McMillan said.
“I realized there was a wave of sadness over so many women’s lives – and I myself had been a casualty. In my age group, there were these women who were lonely, sad and had been betrayed –for whatever reason – deceived and dealing with emptiness. They had divorced and flat-lined.”
The feedback, support and sisterhood she would realize by way of the thousands of women watching McMillan’s real-life drama unfold would inspire her to revisit the characters.
“I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna get back to happy,’” McMillan said. “And see if I can show how we all should.’”
How could she best illustrate the stories and life lessons of the legion of middle-aged women dealing with a certified mess?
“A light bulb went off, and I said, ‘Those women [from Waiting to Exhale] would be about that age,’” McMillan said. “I thought about where their lives had ended, and they became perfect candidates.”
And so Happy was begat. Much of the book is anything but.
Death, drug addiction, crimes of the heart (and the pocketbook), unemployment, deception, health scares, men, menopause, betrayal … the list goes on for the personal dramas that keep them on a non-stop emotional rollercoaster.
“I wanted to show how someone can become a casualty because they just don’t want to get back up,” McMillan said.
Unlike Exhale, these are not women in the “man-thirsty thirties,” but women who found out the hard way that there was more to life – both good and bad – than settling down with Mr. Right or starting over when it’s discovered he’s Mr. Wrong.
“A lot of the things they were preoccupied with those days are behind them,” McMillan said. “I think the entire focus of their lives didn’t center around just getting a man for the sake of having one.”
In Happy, man troubles aren’t the central focus – although they are a significant sidebar.
But at the end of the day, McMillan hopes that through a reunion with the ladies of Exhale she will inspire a nonstop quest for personal peace.
“If anyone can take anything away from this book, I would love if it more of us would really reevaluate the quality of our lives,” McMillan said.
“If we are not happy, I hope that we would become inspired to start doing more things to ensure that. And put the past where it belongs – and keep it there.”
Terry McMillan will sign and discuss her latest novel Getting to Happy, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, September 22 at Christ Church Cathedral (1210 Locust St.). Two complimentary tickets to the event will be given upon purchase of one copy of the book. For more information, visit www.left-bank.com or Call (314)367-6731.
