The success of Terry McMillan has spawned a whole new breed of black, middle-class women novelists. By DWIGHT GARNER Illustration by Polly Becker there's a telling moment early in "Good Hair," Benilde Little's silky first novel, in which a young black woman stumbles into a glittery Manhattan cocktail party ("Sade crooned under a din of Buppies getting down") and observes that the guests aren't really enjoying themselves. They're too busy bludgeoning each other in a coy status game she calls "Negro Geography." There are a million ways to play Negro Geography, as Little defines it. Most involve subtle interrogation: Where did you go to school? Who do you know? and What do you do for a living? In this suave crowd, nappy hair or particularly dark skin may drop you a rung on the class ladder, too. This kind of caste warfare is, of course, no stranger at white shindigs. But Little's point in "Good Hair" is that upper-middle-class blacks play the game with a special vengeance. They're seeking to distance themselves from the white world's notion of "ghetto" blacks, and to link themselves as closely as possible with what W.E.B. Du Bois once called the "Talented Tenth" -- that top slice of articulate, educated African-Americans who give the race its social boosts. In today's black literary world, there's a version of Negro Geography being played, too. On one side stands Benilde Little and a new generation of brash, straight-talking young black female novelists. Taking their cue from Terry McMillan -- whose "Waiting to Exhale" has sold more than four million copies -- these writers steer clear of depictions of racism, slavery and social pathology. Their characters aren't victims. Instead they're interested, like the well-dressed Buppies at Little's fictional cocktail party, in the politics of Making It in America -- getting good jobs, good men and (with some help from their friendlier sisters) grabbing a taste of the sweet life. The soundtrack to their lives is provided by cool, urban chanteuses like Toni Braxton and witty, assertive female rappers like Salt 'N' Pepa, whose song "Big Shot" is virtually a syncopated pep rally for the aspiring black professional woman. Tracy Chapman? The grim stories she relates simply don't apply to these writer's lives -- she's warbling black blues for a largely white audience.

Next: Conspicuous over-consumption.