Terry McMillan - The Interruption of Everything

Marilyn Grimes is a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter. Today, shes decided to make changes in her life, to do something different. Today, Marilyn Grimes has finally decided to be herself. First, she has to find out who that is.

Praise for
The Interruption of Everything

McMillans books offer vindication to her most ardent fans: black women juggling work, family, friends, and the lingering effects of racism. Those readers, who have cheered her earlier heroines as they found themselves, drop-kicked bad-news boyfriends, and tumbled into love, will exult in Marilyns nerve-racking journey to a new stage in her life.

The Baltimore Sun

[McMillans] stories are about everyday lives and her characters are memorable. Along the way, a reader picks up helpful hints on resourcefulness, fortitude in the face of difficulty, and a calm sense of faith.

Los Angeles Times

With humor and heart and humanity, McMillan speaks to women on the verge and, as usual, does it with wit and wisdom.

The Hartford Courant

Poignant, yet humorous.

Ebony

McMillan [has an] effervescent intelligence. Her sparkling repartee makes it easy to imagine her chuckling as she writes. Her portraits of people are equally evocative.

The Washington Post

Smart, spunky, and endearing[an] entertaining and pointed novel.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune

The Interruption of Everything has bestseller written all over it. I found it hard to put down.

Houston Chronicle

McMillan writes this book with the same fast-paced, often witty, conversational tone that endears her to black women, who see themselves or people they know in her characters.

Detroit Free Press

McMillan does what she does best. With her trademark ability to write thought-provoking tales inspired by the lives and loves of contemporary African-American women, McMillan offers another novel sure to resonate with readers grappling with the questions Marilyn poses to herself.

Publishers Weekly

Wont disappoint fans who have come to expect the authentic voices [McMillan] crafts for her charactersand there are lots of them.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Praise for the Other Novels
of Terry McMillan
Waiting to Exhale

Terry McMillan is perhaps the worlds finest chronicler of modern life among African-American men and women. Her characters voices are honest and true as though shes wiretapped the deepest feeling of the heart.

San Francisco Chronicle

Hilarious, irreverentthoroughly entertaining.

The New York Times Book Review

Captures what life and love are all about today.

USA Today

McMillan puts someone you know, something youve felt or heard, on each page. The characters are so real that youll wonder if McMillan hasnt somehow overheard a private conversation.

The Boston Globe

[A] paean to the sisterhood of all women.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Terry McMillan has created a well-written, truthful, and funny story of four African-American womenfour sistuhs who are trying to make it in this world we all live inand the sometimes volatile world of Black femaleBlack male relationships.

Spike Lee

Terry McMillan has such a wonderful ear for story and dialogue. She gives us four women with raw, honest emotions that breathe off the page.

Amy Tan

McMillan is not only a gifted writer but a social critic as clear-eyed as Mark Twain or Zora Neale Hurston or Edith Wharton.

Newsday

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

By the last pages youre weeping. Youre laughing. Youre hooked. Its oh so good.

Chicago Tribune

[McMillan] has a true comic gift. Funny, finely crafted, profoundcontemporary African-American naturalism at its best.

The Village Voice

Disappearing Acts

A love story ready to explode.

The New York Times Book Review

Beautiful and easy to get lost ina stunning achievement.

Cosmopolitan

If Ntozake Shange, Jane Austen, and Danielle Steel collaborated on a novel of manners, thisentertaining book might be the result.

The New Yorker

With Disappearing Acts, McMillan firmly places herself in the same league asAlice Walker, Gloria Naylor, andZora Neale Hurston.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

A cast of likable characters, funny lines, smart repartee, and a warmending. Irreverent, mischievous, divertingwill make you laugh out loud.

The New York Times Book Review

Terry McMillan is the only novelist I have ever read who makes me glad to be a woman.

The Washington Post Book World

A down-and-dirty, romantic, and brave story told to you by this smart, good-hearted woman as if she were your best friend.

Newsday

A LSO BY T ERRY M C M ILLAN

Mama

Disappearing Acts

Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary
African-American Fiction (editor)

Waiting to Exhale

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

THE
INTERRUPTION
OF
EVERYTHING

Terry McMillan

A SIGNET BOOK

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,
Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Viking edition.

Copyright Terry McMillan, 2005
ISBN: 9781101419793

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.