Mama

Mama was originally a story, Ma' Dear, that I workshopped with my writing group, The Harlem Writer's Guild. It was inspired by events from my childhood and characters from Port Huron where I grew up. It is not an auto-biography. Fiction is running reality through the lens of a lie. The structure might be taken from the past, a point of departure, a framework,  but the details are all lifted right out of my imagination.

From Publishers Weekly

This is McMillan's zesty first novel about an impoverished black family's struggle to overcome its problems.

Goodreads.com describes Mama

Mildred Peacock is the touch, funny, feisty heroine of Mama, a survivor who'll do anything to keep her family together. In Mildred's world, men come and go as quickly as her paychecks, but her five children are her dream, her hope and her future. Not since Alice Walker's The Color Purple has a black woman's story been portrayed with such rich power, honesty, and love.