Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living... in a suburb of San Francisco where she is raising her 11-year-old son Quincy. She is trying to do everything possible to have him grow up to be a confident man. But it's hard without a father figure always around.
Visiting... a resort in Jamaica. Quincy's father is taking care of him for nine days, so she went there with her best friend Delilah to try to “get her groove back”– to finally do something for herself.
Profession... trader for the one of the world's largest investment banking institutions. If you want a high return on Russian bonds, she’s your woman. Stella is talented and tough at her job.
Interests... not much. When she’s not working at her stressful job, she is too busy seeing that her son gets to little league practice three times a week and carpool every other week.
Relationship Status... divorced, which is taking its toll. She is so bitter about men that she hasn't been on a date for a year. Though she has number to call when she needs some loving attention.
Challenge... becoming involved with a man who is half her age in Jamaica. She wasn't prepared for what she would find on vacation– a 20-year-old handsome chef assistant named Winston. When she is with him, she feels young again. But other times, she feels old and wonders whether he is only attracted to her to comparison shop between an older woman and the younger girls he is used to seeing.
Personality... proud and fiery, but she also has a vulnerable side that few people see except for Winston.
Get to Know her in...
-
Through good times and bad, Stella and Delilah have always had each other. Now, Stella's so busy building a life that she's forgotten how to really live. But Delilah is about to change all that. What starts as a quick trip to Jamaica, end as an exhilarating voyage of self discovery as Stella learns to open her heart and find love - even if it's with a man 20 years her junior.
-
Stella Payne is forty-two, divorced, a high-powered investment analyst, mother of eleven-year-old Quincy—and she does it all. In fact, if she doesn't do it, it doesn't get done, from Little League carpool duty to analyzing portfolios to folding the laundry and bringing home the bacon. She does it all well, too, if her chic house, personal trainer, BMW, and her loving son are any indication. So what if there's been no one to share her bed with lately, let alone rock her world? Stella doesn't mind it too much; she probably wouldn't have the energy for love—and all of love's nasty fallout—anyway. But when Stella takes a spur-of-the-moment vacation to Jamaica, her world gets rocked to the core—not just by the relaxing effects of the sun and sea and an island full of attractive men, but by one man in particular. He's tall, lean, soft-spoken, Jamaican, smells of citrus and the ocean—and is half her age. The tropics have cast their spell and Stella soon realizes she has come to a cataclysmic juncture: not only must she confront her hopes and fears about love, she must question all of her expectations, passions, and ideas about life and the way she has lived it. Told in Stella's own exuberant, dead-on, dead honest voice, How Stella Got Her Groove Back is full of Terry McMillan's signature humor, heart, and insight. More than a love story, it is ultimately a novel about how a woman saves her own life—and what she must risk to do it.
