In recent years many black professional women have triumphed against great odds in the workplace. Despite this success, few novels celebrate their accomplishments. Black middle-class career women want to see themselves realistically portrayed by protagonists who work to achieve significant productivity and visibility in their careers, desire stability in their personal lives, aspire to accrue wealth, and live elegantly though not consumptively. Identifying the extent to which contemporary novels satisfy the "readerly desires" of black middle-class women readers, this book investigates what the readership prefers and why. It also examines the technical and cultural factors that contribute to the lack of books with self-empowered black professional female protagonists, and considers The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara and Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan, two significant markers in the development of contemporary black women writers' texts.