Little Altars Everywhere - Softcover

Wells, Rebecca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060517794 ISBN 13: 9780060517793

Publisher: Harper Torch, 2003

Synopsis

In the prequel to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Siddalee Walker, a successful New York theater director, takes turns with the members of her family in telling the story of their Louisiana upbringing, their experiences in Our Lady of the Divine Compassion parochial school, and the anguishes and blessings of childhood. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Little Altars Everywhere is much bleaker than its predecessor Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, told by Rebecca Wells with a whisky drawl. Divine Secrets was about heart break, bad parenting and loyalty, spiked with a delicious spitefulness that Scarlett O'Hara would have adored. It was impossible not to be bewitched and bewildered by the Southern charm and molten rage of Vivi and her friends, the Ya-Yas. Bad things happened but narrator Siddalee Walker, Vivi's eldest child, was left with "love and wonder" for her desperado, drunken mother. The charm and the drunken revelry is there in Little Altars Everywhere but it's more desperate and hung over and destructive.

Siddalee, once again, is the hub of the stories, a smart and sensitive raconteur, but the other children also take their part in unpicking the legend that is Vivi. Here Vivi Walker is larger than life and twice as scary, a sort of Mommie Dearest character where affectionate gestures are tainted with inappropriateness, and repressed anger and boredom snakes out into harsh violence. All her children are damaged in some way. Lulu becomes the town's best shop lifter, "The Princess of Gimme", whilst Baylor is depressed and emotionally "parked at the edge of a graveyard." Little Shep's story "Snuggling" goes a long way to explaining the crazy sadness of the Walker children; it tells of Vivi climbing into bed with him: "She looked at me and whispered, Give me a hug, Little Shep, give me a hug and a kiss ... then she reached down and started to rub her hand across one of my nipples." And "Willetta's Witness" brings on the darkness as all four children are "lined up against the wall of that brick house and everyone of them buck naked. Miz Vivi out there with a belt, whuppin' them like horses". Despite all this Little Altars isn't a depressing read; the whiplash wit and the whiskey phrases add some measure of merriment to the misery. --Eithne Farry

Review:

"A hilarious and heartbreaking first novel." -- Booklist

"Wells' people pop with life." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Energetic and delicious.each voice is unique, independent and right on." -- Seattle Times

Wells people pop with life. --Kirkus Reviews

"Rebecca Wells has written a funny, eloquent and sad novel that easily leaps regional bounds."--Washington Post

"Wells effectively juxtaposes the innocence and joy of childhood reveries with the pain and guilt of adult memories."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Wells' people pop with life."--Kirkus Reviews

"A gem of a book....Wells offers a virtuoso performance."--Denver Post

"At the Walker family altar, sainthood is a one-way ticket to purgatory, and getting there is half the fun."--Columbus Dispatch

"A hilarious and heartbreaking first novel."--Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Torch
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060517794
• ISBN 13: 9780060517793
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 400