Waiting To Exhale
“Basically, what I find attractive about you is the fact that we’re complete opposites. You’re unpredictable, smart, and pretty analytical. You’re excited about life and all its possibilities, and I just love your sense of humor. And on top of all that you’re beautiful.”
After a few years of reading Black literary classics I realized, I was tired of reading about my people’s trauma. It seems that the crux of most, if not all, of the books that I have read over the last few years have been racialized trauma. I wanted something that was celebratory. My best friend pointed me in the direction of romance novels. While this book undoubtedly has romantic plots, it is the sisterhood that I came for and which kept me coming back.
What had happened was…
Waiting To Exhale follows four women’s lives through the lens of friendship, career, and losing and finding love.
Savannah moves from Denver because she is bored with her life and moves to Phoenix, Arizona for a new job opportunity and a new life. She drives down with a man who ends up being a swindler and eventually starts her new life with her good friend Bernadine. Savannah begins to excel at her new job, but her past comes creeping back. An old flame reconnects with her and while he is married Savannah initially entertains him out of a need for connection. Savannah eventually realizes that he will never leave his wife and moves on to accept that romantic love is not the end all be all. However, immediately upon coming to this conclusion she meets a man that totally gives of himself to Savannah and Savannah lets go of her fears. Only to be ghosted. Savannah gets her dream job and stays in Phoenix.
Bernadine is told by her husband that he is leaving her for his secretary, a white woman. Bernadine is tormented by this thought as she has sacrificed so much of her life to build their life and business. During her divorce she realizes that her now ex-husband has been hiding money and attempting to swindle her out of her deserved divorce settlement. With this anger in her heart, Bernadine enters the dating scene and ends up with somebody else’s husband. Bernadine eventually come to her senses and has one amazing whirl wind of a night with a new man. His wife is dying and her life is falling apart, they find comfort in one another for a night. Bernadine eventually wins her deserved divorce settlement and begins life anew with the same man she had one whirl wind of a night with.
Gloria is a single mother of a teenaged boy. She spends all of her time either mothering him or working at her hair salon. Gloria is a plus sized woman and her self-esteem has been affected by the fatphobia that she is surrounded by. She finds out the one man she continually waits to come back to her, her baby father, is no longer bi-sexual and does not date women anymore. Between the stress of her life, raising a son, and running a business- Gloria suffers a heart attack. While recovering she is cared for by her friends, her son, and a new neighbor who wants to be more than a handyman.
Robyn is beautiful, but continually finds herself in the wrong relationship. She begins by blaming these relationships on horoscopes, but begins to wonder whether she will ever find the right one. Robyn dates a guy from work, who while nice, does not workout. She then dates a man who is a crack addict and tries to move too quickly with her. Lastly, she returns to an old flame who while married says he is leaving his wife. Robyn gets pregnant by this last man and decides not to involve the man as he continues with his married life. Robyn ends the book looking forward to her new life, both her own and the one brewing inside of her.
Aiight so boom…
This may be one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book. Not only is the movie FILLED with star power, has one of the best soundtracks ever, it also contains classic scenes not in the book (“He’s a good man Savanah” and “You raggedy bitch” are not part of the book). However, what I find interesting about this read is that I intended it to be a break from the trauma filled books I have been reading for years. Instead, I found a book that embraces quite a lot of the forces that my other reads have fought against: fatphobia, homophobia and rampant slut-shaming are throughout the text. It made me think whether there were any Black classic stories outside of this context? Is some part of Blackness in relation to a constant fight against these forces. Is what I’m looking for merely a story with characters painted brown? I came to the conclusion that my Blackness is not rooted in trauma, but rather in being in community. The part that I loved about this book was the love shared amongst the women and how they crafted community amongst themselves despite these forces impacting them. It is also undoubtedly the most I have laughed in reading for some time.