SISTERHOOD'S `DIVINE SECRETS' A DIVINE YA-YA EXPERIENCE.Byline: Cassandra Smith Special to the Daily News Title: ``Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood'' Author: Rebecca Wells Data: 356 pages, Harper Collins; $24 Our rating: Four Stars Get ready for a nonstop reading experience with Rebecca Wells' poignant new novel, ``Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a novel written by Rebecca Wells. It is the sequel to Little Altars Everywhere. Unlike its predecessor, which is a series of short stories, Divine Secrets is a novel. .'' You will laugh and cry as the story of a mother-daughter relationship unfolds and lifelong friendships and family loyalties are revealed. The story opens when Siddalee Walker, a successful theater director, gives an interview to The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times to promote her latest Broadway triumph. She inadvertently comments on some less-than-savory facts about growing up in Louisiana and brands her mother, Vivi, a ``tap-dancing child abuser child abuser Public health A person who mentally or physically abuses a child Typical CA profile Age < 30, slightly more likely to be ♀, whose mother was unemployed/employed part time as a manual laborer Typical victim Young children, teens. .'' Hurt and angry, Vivi refuses to talk to her daughter, and to make matters worse, she persuades her lifelong girlfriends Teensy, Caro and Necie to boycott Sidda's new play. Distraught over the fallout with her mother, Sidda postpones her marriage to set designer Connor McGill and goes to Seattle to direct a production of ``The Women.'' But needing time alone to ponder her future, Sidda retreats to a cabin on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, where she contemplates her childhood and her mother's inseparable and indomitable in·dom·i·ta·ble adj. Incapable of being overcome, subdued, or vanquished; unconquerable. [Late Latin indomit group of four women called the Ya-Yas (read charming). Vivi's friends convince her to send Sidda a scrapbook of girlhood mementos titled ``Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood'' to help her understand what true sisterhood sisterhood: see monasticism. is all about. As Sidda flips through the album, she begins to understand the deep and abiding friendship of these women. The scrapbook acts as the vehicle to take the reader back in time to 1932, when at age 6, Vivi and her friend were disqualified dis·qual·i·fy tr.v. dis·qual·i·fied, dis·qual·i·fy·ing, dis·qual·i·fies 1. a. To render unqualified or unfit. b. To declare unqualified or ineligible. 2. from a Shirley Temple look-alike contest for ``unladylike behavior.'' Letters contained in the scrapbook tell about the adventure the Ya-Yas had on a trip to the premiere of ``Gone With the Wind'' in Atlanta, where they experienced prejudice and segregation firsthand. As Sidda digs through the faded photographs and mementos, she is flooded with memories of her own childhood, both the dark episodes and joyous occasions, and she begins to understand and forgive some of her mother's inexplicable transgressions. The reader also begins to see the troubled adolescence of Vivi, an unhappy period that contributed to her abuse of Sidda. The novel is a masterful narrative that covers the lives of four generations of Catholic Southern women. It deals with the complexity of strong friendships and human frailties. ``You could not put your finger on it, but you knew these women shared secret lagoons of knowledge. Secret codes and lore and lingo stretching back into that fluid time before air conditioning dried up the rich, heavy humidity that used to hang over the porches of Louisiana CODE, OF LOUISIANA. In 1822, Peter Derbigny, Edward Livingston, and Moreau Lislet, were selected by the legislature to revise and amend the civil code, and to add to it such laws still in force as were not included therein. , drenching drenching farmer's term for the administration of medicines as solutions or suspensions in water by mouth with a drench bottle, gun or funnel. drenching bit to be included in a bridle as a bit. cotton blouses, beads of sweat tickling the skin, slowing people down so the world entered them in an unhurried way,'' Wells writes about the Ya-Yas. ``A thick stew of life that seeped into the very blood of people so that eccentric, languid thoughts simmered inside.'' And when Sidda recalls her years growing up, she remembers that she learned to stay on the ball and to walk a tightrope: ``She (Sidda) perfected the ability to walk into a room and instantly divine each person's mood, need, desire. She developed the capacity to take the temperature of a scene, a character, a conversation, a single gesture, and to gauge just what was needed and when and how much. Vivi swung wide in her waltzes with angels, in her jousting jousting Medieval Western European mock battle between two horsemen who charged at each other with leveled lances in an attempt to unseat the other. It probably originated in France in the 11th century, superseding the mêlée, in which mock battles were held between with demons Demons See also devil; evil; ghosts; hell; spirits and spiritualism. ademonist one who denies the existence of the devil or demons. bogyism, bogeyism recognition of the existence of demons and goblins. , and her daughter learned to choreograph drama from these fluctuations.'' This is a fine book, filled with a roller-coaster of emotions. Once you pick it up, you can't put it down. |
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