54 pages • 1 hour read
Terry McMillanWaiting to Exhale
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Terry McMillan
Terry McMillan is an American novelist. Born in Port Huron, Michigan, McMillan has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in film from Columbia University. McMillan’s first novel, Mama, was published in 1988. Due to limited promotion by the publisher, McMillan promoted her own novel by writing to Black-owned booksellers, resulting in the book selling out its first run of 5,000 hardcover copies.
Waiting to Exhale is McMillan’s third novel. Published in 1992, it spent several months on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than three million copies by 1995. Waiting to Exhale is credited as being the first novel to showcase the professional and romantic lives of middle-class Black women. The novel also indirectly influenced the R&B genre, as the film adaptation’s soundtrack, produced by Babyface, created a platform for female R&B artists to create a dialogue via music regarding the experiences of modern Black women (Younger, Brianna. “Shocking Omissions: ‘Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album’,” NPR, 13 Sept. 2017).
McMillan published another bestseller, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, in 1996, which was also adapted into a major film in 1998. She has since written many other novels, including a sequel to Waiting to Exhale called Getting to Happy, published in 2010.
Sociohistorical Context: The United States in the 1990s
Waiting to Exhale takes place in 1990, a setting that is reflected through the technology, financial, pop culture, and political references in the novel.
The novel is set in a period before home computers, the internet, and cellphones were ubiquitous, adding a layer of complexity to communicating with friends, family, and potential love interests. While the protagonists regularly speak on the phone, they depend on landline phones and answering machines, which recorded messages when someone wasn’t available to pick up. Furthermore, the first online dating site did not come online until 1995, so meeting potential romantic partners happened exclusively in person, whether at bars or restaurants or singles’ nights organized by social groups. The novel is notable for its depiction of middle-class, professional Black women. Each of the women earns enough money to live comfortably, but McMillan’s depiction of their respective financial situations further situates the novel in the 1990s. When the women attempt to raise money for their professional organization, Black Women on the Move, a character notes that they’re in a recession and that people don’t have extra money to spend, a nod to the economic downturn that began in mid-1990 and lasted into 1991. Bernadine also receives a large divorce settlement of $1 million, which is equivalent to approximately $2.3 million today.
The novel also acknowledges the political and social climate of the era. In 1990, George H. W. Bush was president, taking office on January 20, 1989. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison in Camp Town, South Africa, a fact that Savannah and Lionel discuss over dinner. Furthermore, the novel explores the AIDS epidemic that began in 1981. From the beginning, the public falsely perceived that the epidemic affected only the LGBTQ+ community, as the mode of transmission created a situation in which the most commonly affected people were gay men and people who used IV drugs. This led to a great deal of bias and fear among the public. By 1990, other people with AIDS—such as Ryan White, who contracted AIDS via a blood transfusion—came forward to show that people outside of the LGBTQ+ community were also impacted by this disease, and more information was available regarding transmission and prevention. However, it did little to ease public opinion. Waiting to Exhale explores these lingering biases through the character Phillip, a gay hairdresser who works at Gloria’s salon.
The novel contains frequent references to early 1990s pop culture. The character Gloria loves television, which was still provided by an antenna on the roof, and cable was a luxury. Television saw the premieres of The Simpsons, Cheers, and a Cosby Show spinoff, A Different World. Bernadine takes her kids to see Home Alone, and Savannah finds director Spike Lee “sexy”—his 1989 film Do the Right Thing was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay. Characters enjoy music via music videos on BET, as well as the radio and now-obsolete cassette tapes. In 1990, Sinead O’Connor flew to the top of the charts with the Prince-written ballad, Nothing Compares 2 U. Madonna and Mariah Carey were at the top of the Billboard charts, joining popular artists Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. However, Gloria laments that her teenage son Tarik only listens to rap.
