It Was the Way She Said It: Short Stories, Essays, and Wisdom

“This stunning collection from one of the great writers on Black culture covers the gamut: aging, love, poverty, trauma and plenty of lightness in between.”—People

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale comes a remarkable, career-spanning collection of previously published short fiction and nonfiction pieces, as well as never-before-seen works.

Before Terry McMillan found success as a novelist in the early 1990s, she published provocative, boundary-pushing short stories, capturing the struggles and triumphs of Black life in America with vitality and honesty, from the workaday factory man’s malaise in “The End” to the cast-aside lover’s resolve in “Touching” to the elderly woman’s wiles in “Ma’Dear.” McMillan’s inimitable voice bravely explores the dark corners of human relationships with compassion, humor, and nuance. This collection also features five unpublished stories that reveal how she wrestled with controversial topics rarely addressed in short fiction, from domestic abuse in “Mama, Take Another Step” to extreme poverty in “Can’t Close My Eyes to It.”

Whether she’s revealing life lessons, pontificating about aging, recalling her sources of inspiration, or laying bare the beginnings of her life as a writer, McMillan approaches every piece with enduring candor, wit, and fearlessness.

Devoted fans and new readers alike will be delighted to discover these treasures spanning McMillan’s long, groundbreaking career. Indeed, it wasn’t only what Terry McMillan has said that made her so beloved . . . it was the way she said it.

Terry McMillan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It’s Not All Downhill From Here, I Almost Forgot About You, Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and other novels, and the editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. Four of her novels have been made into movies: Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Disappearing Acts, and A Day Late and a Dollar Short. She lives in California.