“Need I tell you that being a party pooper is a cardinal sin in the Church of Vivi? It’s the eleventh commandment, which Moses forgot to bring down the mountain: Thou Shalt Not Be a Party Pooper.”-Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
I was skeptical. Selecting a book that my friend had pegged “Oprah’s Club without the sticker” was a risk, but I was willing to take it because the book was marked 30 percent off.
However, by the end of this novel, my inner critic had been beaten down and, to my surprise, it had nothing to do with what I had ignorantly assumed would be page after page of estrogen-injected feel-good storytelling. In fact, the novel was more like a jab in the ribs?a series of vignettes that immerses the readers in the deep South (Louisiana) and allows them to watch as the author, Rebecca Wells, delicately (and sometimes viciously) peeled the layers off a family to expose its inner flavors-both sweet and sour.
The story in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood centers around Sidda Walker, a forty-something playwright whose present situation appears to be flawless?a successful theatre career (including a recent production at the Lincoln Center), a boyfriend who is an absolute best friend and lover, and a cocker spaniel named Hueylene that seems to always be at her side.
However, the tide turns quickly in the book’s first chapter, as we learn that the Sunday New York Times wrote a feature on Walker, describing her mother, Vivi, as a “tap-dancing child abuser.”
Though we later discover evidence attesting to the veracity of the reporter’s statement, we witness the entertaining, strange and hand-wringing tension that comprises this dynamic mother-daughter relationship.
Vivi?the sun that Sidda and the novel orbit around?asserts in a mother-daughter phone call that “This is pure character-defaming shit from the most hideous child imaginable.”
Ironically, this conflict (one of the last in a series of traumatic family member encounters) results in the divulgence of the secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
However, before we get any deeper into the secrets, I would like to preface it with this: Read the book. It’s not one of those cheesy “read-me-on-the-beach” books. It’s a book with its own distinct character and feeling. It’s the first I’ve read in a while that captures the essence of Southern women and the often misunderstood southern region’s way of life. The novel includes unique and engaging discourse on human behavior and the nature of relationships with family, friends and lovers.
Now to the juice.
The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is composed of four women?Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie?who are passionate about all life has to offer. Their vivacious natures crush any senior citizen stereotypes. Their unofficial kitchen blackboard motto? SMOKE, DRINK, NEVER THINK?a line cleverly stolen from Billie Holiday.
Though the Ya-Yas have, over the years, become masters at the first two, they epitomize the opposite of the third.
Their wisecracking, moxie-full antics sustain the novel’s comic element just enough to expose the pain (and ultimate strength) that lies beneath.
Vivi has continually battled with her alcoholism, tried to smooth over the scars from years with a ruthless mother and overcome obstacles that kept her from expressing love for her children. And we watch as her eldest daughter comes to terms with her own vulnerability through examining the seemingly bulletproof web of friendship that the Ya-Yas have so intricately woven since childhood.
Along with these serious issues, however, Wells has wisely decorated the novel with light but noteworthy stories?including the Ya-Ya sisters’ participation as youths in a Shirley Temple look- alike contest, a trip to the opening of “Gone With the Wind” and their birthday suit summer escapade into the city’s water tower during WWII.
Wells has molded the novel’s characters, and their experiences, into a well-wrought piece of southern-style storytelling.
In the book’s final chapters, we experience with Sidda the memories evoked from a single key that hangs in her cabin?a cabin that she has used as an escape to reassess her life (including her engagement to what appears to be the perfect man).
The key, we discover, was a promotional tool for the opening of a mall the summer after Sidda’s second grade year. The key was Sidda’s ticket to ride Lawanda The Magnificent, an elephant that took kids on rides around the parking lot while their parents became enchanted with the new shopping centers.
Sidda, after weeks of anticipating her elephant encounter, suddenly froze before getting on, and ran back to the car, fearing that she would never see her mother and sibling again. She imagined that Lawanda would throw them off her back and “trample them like ants.”
When her mother and siblings returned untrampled, Sidda pleaded to go back, and it was her mother?the one who had beaten Sidda in an alcohol induced frenzy, the one who had expressed such undemanding love for her Ya-Ya sisters?that drove all the way back to the mall and took the enchanting ride that almost never was. Sidda’s lesson to herself? It’s life, Sidda. You just climb on the beast and ride.
Like many modern best sellers, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood has its sappy moments. However, the book’s finely woven narrative outstretches any ephemeral reach into the superficially sentimental.
As a personal testimony from a novice literary critic, I give you this advice: Before reading the novel, I imagined that Wells would take a metaphorical toe dip into meaningfulness. What I found instead was an elegant belly flop into life’s waters?whether they be hot, cold or comfortably in-between.