The Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood: A Novel - Softcover

Wells, Rebecca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060502258 ISBN 13: 9780060502256

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

At thirty-nine, SiddaLee Walker has escaped her Louisiana hometown to become a theatrical director, but as she gathers old letters, photos, journals, and souvenirs from the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to assist in writing a play about women's friendships, she yearns to revisit her childhood and heal a rift with her mother. Reprint. (A Warner Bros. film, releasing July 12, 2002, directed by Callie Khouri, starring Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Smith, Shirley Knight, Fionnula Flanagan, James Garner, Cherry Jones, Matthew Settle, & Angus MacFayden) (General Fiction)

About this title

Review:

Siddalee Walker's mother Vivi disowns her daughter when a reporter, who interviews the 40-year-old, successful director, describes her mother as a "tap dancing child abuser". Devastated, Sidda postpones her wedding. The Ya-Yas, Vivi's strong circle of friends since childhood, are horrified and agree to send Siddalee the scrapbook of "Divine Secrets" to try and help her to understand her mother and herself.

Sidda submerges herself in the wild, wondrous and wicked world of the Ya-Yas as she reads through half-a-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's parcel of "Divine Secrets". Middle-class Louisiana quakes as the quartet makes its way through adolescence: from being disqualified from the Shirley-Temple-look-a-like competition because Teensy did a "poot", to attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, only for Vivi's hoop skirt, "much to her confusion, to go entirely over the head of the person sitting in the seat in front of her", to spending a night in jail after floating naked on a hot southern evening in the town's water cooler.

Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere (in which Siddalee Walker describes the anguishes of childhood), has created a beautifully crafted, penetrating insight into society, friendship, the mother/daughter divide and religion. No subject is taboo as you dip in and out of the lives of Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie--the Ya Yas. --Nicola Perry

Book Description:

When Siddalee Walker, eldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker (Ya-Ya extraordinaire - part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah) is interviewed about a hit play she has directed, her mother is described as a 'tap-dancing child abuser'. Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda - devastating her daughter who postpones her wedding and puts her life on hold until she is granted forgiveness. Trying to repair the relationship, the Ya-Yas, Vivi's intrepid tribe of Louisiana girlfriends, sashay in and insist Sidda is sent 'The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood', a scrapbook of their lives together from the day in 1932 when they were disqualified from a Shirley Temple lookalike contest for unladylike behaviour. Expected to raise babies, not Cain, the Ya-Yas are bonded for life in an unforgettable exploration of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships and the power of female friendship.' One of those rare books you'll be pressing on all your friends' She

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060502258
• ISBN 13: 9780060502256
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 469