A Day Late and a Dollar Short by T. McMillan

Terry McMillan's latest novel "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" brings to life a family divided and afflicted with problems lead by a hard talking matriarch, Viola Price. The novel overwhelms from the onset with the hard to believe circumstances of this family however after closer examination, McMillan's characters bear striking resemblances to real people like else, with real problems.

The family of six trudges through problems with no end in sight, while Viola and estranged husband Cecil get separated after years of marriage and the decline of their family owned business. Paris a successful cater described as "the only one who ever has money", a perfectionist with her own private struggle. Charlotte is the cookie cutter image of her mother and is proud of the fact that she is not divorced like her siblings with her stubborn demeanor she stays at odds with everyone in the family. Janelle is her daddy's favorite, spoiled as a child and a pushover as an adult she cannot get beyond being dependent on someone. Lewis is the black sheep and a hopeless alcoholic plagued with an arthritis condition that his family does not believe exist.

Viola routinely makes emergency hospital visits the result of an asthmatic condition that just further increases the distance and strife within the family. McMillan allows the family members to tell their versions of the story as it unfolds throughout the novel. After a series of traumatic events, illegitimate pregnancies, infidelities, molestation and incarceration, the family looks destine for ruin in spite of heroic efforts by "Ms. fix-it-all" Paris. Only after an unexpected and devastating tragedy does the family begin to come together and heal the deep wounds.

"A Day Late and a Dollar Short" is a timely and prosperous novel that is quickly moving up the New York Times bestseller list. I challenge readers of McMillan's novels not to identify with at least one of her characters.

As a student, Terry McMillan studied under Poet, Novelist and social critic Ishmael Reed and an admirer of the late humorous writer Ring Lardner. The influence is evident in McMillan's characters that teem with life and will leave you chuckling at their wit and shaking your heading in acknowledgement.

A Contemporary literary figure of considerable clout, Terry McMillan is known as much for her novels as the motion pictures that bear her stamp, "Waiting to Exhale" and "Stella got her Groove Back", other novels by Terry McMillan, "Mama", "Disappearing Act."

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