Little Altars Everywhere

The companion to the bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, here is the tale that first introduced Siddalee, Vivi, their spirited Walker clan, and the indomitable Ya-Yas.

The lineage of Wells's first novel can be traced directly to the "adult children" literature that has gained popularity in recent years. "I have one main rule for myself these days: Don't hit the baby. It means: Don't hurt the baby that is me. Don't beat up on the little one who I'm learning to hold and comfort . . . ," Siddalee says in the book's final chapter. Her voice, like those of the lesser narrators (sister, two brothers, parents, grandmother, blacks who work for the family), sounds increasingly contrived as the book progresses. The structure doesn't help matters, allocating one or two chapters to most characters--in Part I showing Siddalee and her siblings as children in Louisiana in the 1960s, in Part II the same characters 30 years later. Attempts at black dialect or small-town Louisiana slang are also superficial. The entire book consists of retellings, with little room (or incentive) for readers to share the action. There are some wonderful sections, such as when the grandmother's lap dog has a "hysterectomy," then learns to put dolls to bed as if they were her children, but such moments cannot sustain the reader's interest through more than 200 pages.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A somewhat disjointed but appealing first novel--winner of the 1992 Western States Book Award for Fiction--set in the early 60's and 90's in small-town Louisiana. The story is narrated in turn by members of a curiously likable family--of terrible parents and unstrung kids--and by a pair of depressingly noble black servants. After a 1991 erotic dream tribute to Mama Viviane by daughter Siddalee, Part I begins with Siddalee, in 1963, telling of the Girl Scout camping weekend led by Mama and one of her ``Ya-Ya'' chums. (The Ya-Yas drink bourbon and branch water, play a kind of poker and shout and drink again, and call everyone ``Dahling'' like their idol Tallulah.) Meanwhile, those moments that ``came and went,'' the chances to be kind and set things right, are on the mind of Daddy, ``Big Shep,'' in his story. Both parents are awash in self- pity, feel threatened, and, to make things worse, Big Shep is not really one of the Old Boys, being Baptist (he talks to ``Old Podnah'' in the fields) and a farmer. Viviane feels no one knows what she really is and hates Siddalee's love of books: ``Life is not a book. You can't just walk away from it when it gets boring and you get tired.'' The parents drink away the silences within, while the children see all but don't really know all--until Part II and 1991, when they remember and examine their memories with hatred, bitterness, and, crazily, adult love. The servants disclose terrible cruelty; one son discloses sexual abuse; and another son pays witty tribute to the homeland and people in bitter cynicism and true affection. Wells's people pop with life, but it's quite a stretch from a sour mash Auntie Mame to an abusive Mommie Dearest without some fictional coherence; here, violence seems grafted rather than grown. But Wells's view of Mama Vivi and a Ya-Ya, bagged to the ears and rocketing down the road, is memorable. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In her "family of stories," playwright Wells sets up plenty of "little altars" for the numerous members of the Walker clan to kneel at and make confession. This crazy, joyful Louisiana family has its share of secrets--from alcoholism to incest--that are slowly revealed as each person has his or her say. Readers will be most interested in the oldest daughter, Siddalee, whose sheer irreverence and consuming curiosity propels what little plot there is until she finally discovers how to forgive her family. Wells's keen sense of character and superb ear for voice unify the loose assemblage of tales. For Southern literature and large modern fiction collections.
- Rita Ciresi, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.