McMillan typically writes about relationships. Her second novel Disappearing Acts (1989) depicts a mercurial romance between a Brooklyn schoolteacher, also an aspiring singer, and a sometimesemployed building contractor. McMillan's third novel, the enormously popular Waiting to Exhale (1992; see separate entry), depicts four women—Savannah, Bernadine, Robin, Gloria—who more closely resemble Stella in striking professional success. The only mother among them, Gloria, has a son. Much like Stella, Gloria dotes on her son and wants him to be a strong, confident African-American man who is not afraid to show his feelings. Gloria, like Stella, lives in a predominantly white neighborhood so that her son can be well educated and experience life without gangs.

In Waiting to Exhale, the overriding theme again is self-realization. The four women, though well able to care for themselves financially, seek self-validation in relationships with men. Like Stella, all have had...