Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel (Paperback)

by Rebecca Wells (Author) "Tap-dancing child abuser..." (more)
Key Phrases: divine secrets, Sister Solange, Aunt Louise, Mother Superior (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Wells is a Louisiana-born Seattle actress and playwright; her loopy saga of a 40-year-old player in Seattle's hot theater scene who must come to terms with her mama's past in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana, reads like a lengthy episode of Designing Women written under the influence of mint juleps and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is "part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah." The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest, and bonded for life because, as one says, "It's so much fun being a bad girl!"

Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of "Divine Secrets." It's a contrived premise, but the secrets are really fun to learn.

From Publishers Weekly
Carrying echoes of both Fannie Flagg and Pat Conroy, Wells's second novel continues the story of Siddalee Walker, introduced in Little Altars Everywhere (1992). When Sidda asks her mother, the aging belle Vivi, for help in researching women's friendships, Vivi sends her daughter a scrapbook. From this artifact of Vivi's own lifelong friendship with three women collectively known as "the Ya-Ya's," and from Sidda's response to it, a story unfolds regarding a dark period in Vivi and Sidda's past that plagues their present relationship. While anecdotes about the Ya-Ya's (such as the riotous scene at a Shirley Temple look-alike contest) are often very amusing, the narrative is beset by superficial characterization and forced colloquialisms. Told through several narrative vehicles and traveling through space and time from Depression-era Louisiana to present-day Seattle, this novel attempts to wed a folksy homespun tale to a soul-searching examination of conscience. But while Wells's ambition is admirable and her talent undeniable, she never quite makes this difficult marriage work. $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (May) FYI: HarperPerennial will publish the paperback edition of Little Altars Everywhere, which won the Western States Book Award, in May.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Perennial (May 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060928336
• ISBN-13: 978-0060928339
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1,177 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #520,923 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gumbo, Zydeco and Ya-Yas - a Rich Mix, April 1, 2000

By	CaudleClan (SE USA) - See all my reviews

If you read "Little Altars Everywhere", you will be glad to know that "Divine Secrets" takes a look at the life of Siddalee Walker from the distance of heavily analyzed adulthood. "Divine Secrets" focuses once again on Siddalee, but this time she is a 40-year old successful stage director who is taking some time out from her career and her love life to put to rest some old ghosts.

After having humiliated her mother in national print (a New York Times reporter calls Viviane Walker "a tap dancing child abuser"), Siddalee is gifted with her mother's scrapbook, which, in Vivane Walker's typically outrageous style, has been named "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood". Viviane sends Siddalee this volume of personal mementos in an effort to have Siddalee understand her better without having to put any personal effort into the process.

Inside this scrapbook, Siddalee discovers bits and pieces of her mother's past - pictures, newspapaer articles, mementos - but she is not granted the entire story surrounding each of these titilating fragments. The reader is able to learn, through Viviane's own memory, all of the interesting details that Siddalee doesn't get to know.

This, I feel, is the greatest weekness in "Divine Secrets". The reader gets to see Viviane as a child and an adolescent, living in a home where she is abused by her father and openly detested by her mother. We learn about the death in WWII of Viviane's first and only love and the stresses put on her by having four stair-step children and an absentee husband. Siddalee, however, is not privy to any of this information. She reads tantalizing tidbits in newspaper articles, gleans what meaning she can from photographs, party invitations, and mysterious keys, but never knows any of the details the reader does. Because of this, it is difficult for me to believe that in the end of the novel Siddalee can forgive Viviane her many transgressions. It doesn't seem to me that she has enough information to be that magnanimous.

Other than this one flaw, "Divine Secrets" is a beautiful book. The women in this novel are fully realized characters - I recognized each one of these women, and even grew up with some of them (but not all of them together, thank goodness!). The descriptions of Louisiana are rich and detailed, and as much as I hate a crustaceon, I was dreaming of crawfish for days after turning the last page.

"Divine Secrets" is about forgiveness and the power of love. Rebecca Wells is brave to offer up a novel filled with women who are real enough to not always be likable (in fact, Viviane is almost never likable), and she is a talented enough word smith to keep these women sympathetic. "Divine Secrets" is a soothing, redeeming follow up to "Little Altars", and I recommend it. Throw some Zydeco on the stereo and curl up with a cup of java - this one will keep you up all night!

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Divine..., June 5, 2002

By	James Hiller (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Two words that sum up this marvelous work of literature by Rebecca Wells: simply divine. I read this book on an airplane simply to pass the time, and found myself engrossed in a charming, quirky, and delightful romp of four of the most richly drawn women I have met in literature in a long time.

Wells manages to capture the incorrigible spirit of each of the "Ya-Ya's" and their dynamics are wonderful. Their complex, supportive group is a real entity, as real as the characters that created it. The most rich character of the bunch is Vivi, whom you both love and fear. She is a tornado in the Louisana swamps, and her antithesis is her much-confused daughter Sidda. It's Sidda and Vivi's relationship that lies at the heart of this book. Through Vivi's life, Sidda learns and relearns some important lessons in life that allow her to continue forward. By looking back, it helps sets her future.

What could have been merely a fun romp turns out to be dripping with personal nuggets of honesty. With each turn of the page, you laugh, you cry, you contemplate. Divine Secrets is surprisingly full of divine secrets, and discovering them is half the fun.

Take it from a guy who loved this book: don't delay, put this book on your summer reading list, and then enjoy the movie.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not as light and frothy as the title implies, January 29, 2000

By	Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I had resisted this book for a long time because the title seemed silly. But I'd heard from several people that it was a good book, and I was ready to read what I thought might be light and frothy entertainment. I was immediately caught up in the story, however, and soon discovered that this was not a light book at all.

Sidda, who was brought up in Louisiana is, at age 40, is a successful theatrical director who has a falling out with her mother, Vivi, when she reveals too much of her childhood in a New York Times interview and her mother is depicted in print as a "tap dancing child abuser". Sidda is so deeply upset by this that she postpones her upcoming wedding and goes off to an island off the coast of Seattle to be alone. Her mother sends her a copy of a scrapbook entitled "The Devine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and gradually Sidda discovers more and more about her mother as well as about herself.

The four women who call themselves the Ya Yas developed their friendship as children in the 1930s and have been friends ever since. They've kept their friendship through their teenage years in the early forties, their marriages and motherhood in the 50s and have continued their friendship right up to the present, being there for each other through a lifetime of living.

The story is really Vivi's story though, and the place of the three friends in this novel is of important, but yet supporting players. With ultimate skill, the author brings the reader into the deep south. There's humidity and sweet smelling flowers; there's love and cruelty; there's the inequality of the racial relationships, there's funny and poignant stories; there's deep characterization. And, most of all there is friendship between the Ya Yas.

Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. I wanted to know what happened next. I wanted to learn more and more about Vivi. The structure of incident and flashback worked for me. And I found myself getting into the skin of a Scarlet O'Hara-type character who I might not like if I met on the street. She's a complex person. And VERY imperfect. And that is where the strength of this book lies.

Recommended.