I love Rebecca Wells. She has a way of describing things that no author I’ve read so far approximates. They are so dead-on that I feel like I know exactly what she’s talking about, like at some point she and I must have smelled the same exact thing or seen the same thing, because there is no other way she could know how it makes me feel. I can’t even think of an example, but it happens all throughout the book (and the other one I’ve read by her), so look out for it.
Little Altars Everywhere is a companion book to The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and before you roll your eyes and say, “uggghhhh that chick flick?” give it a chance. If there is one thing I have learned from a lifetime of reading and watching movies, it’s that film adaptations can be anything from obsessively true to the book to a very loose interpretation. The film starring Sandra Bullock is a very loose interpretation of Ya-Ya and Little Altars Everywhere, and it’s much more… I don’t know, touchy-feely, love your mother no matter what because she gave you life, etc. There are scenes in the movie that are straight out of the novel, but then there are some that are nowhere near true to the novel, but they make the movie one that is good to watch if you like chick flicks. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood was published after Little Altars Everywhere, which I actually didn’t know when I bought Ya-Ya a few months ago and read it before Little Altars. After reading this novel, I like the main character’s mother, Vivi, a lot less.
Now, in Ya-Ya, Siddalee, the eldest child of Vivi Walker (mentally unstable but in a mostly fun way, and also an alcoholic, southern belle) leaves her fiancee in New York for a little while to do some soul searching in a small town outside of Seattle, WA. She goes there to decide if she really wants to get married, because she is struggling with some painful childhood memories of her mother, and is afraid she will end up like her some year down the line. She takes her mother’s scrapbook (titled “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”) in order to get a better insight into her mother’s life. At one point, her mother’s three best friends (the Ya-Ya’s) Teensy, Caro, and Necie show up to help Siddalee on her journey. It is at this point that Siddalee finds out that what she remembers as her mother “beating the shit out of everyone and then leaving for months” was actually a nervous breakdown exacerbated by a toxic mix of prescription drugs that were intended to cure alcoholism. Thus, she comes to a decision to forgive her mother and marry her fiancee, etc. The End.
Little Altars Everywhere is a different sort of book, though, in form and tone. Wells’ first book is more like a series of vignettes, little scenes and memories from the perspectives of the different members of the Walker family and their closest friends throughout several decades, and there is less of a cohesive plot line. It also moves from the whimsical, sunny, happy memories of childhood, to the darker, more sinister perspective of a scarred adult looking back on their childhood for signs of danger. When I read Ya-Ya, I felt a lot of sympathy for Vivi, and felt like her eccentricity and self centered attitude were endearing. After reading Wells’ first novel, I have no sympathy for Vivi whatsoever. There is an allusion (it isn’t explicit or graphic in any way, no creepy details, but it’s clear this is there) towards sexual abuse, specifically in the chapter that is from the perspective of Little Shep, Siddalee’s younger brother, in adulthood. In it, he remembers his mother coming into his room and snuggling with him at night, and then he alludes to something traumatic occurring during this time. Apparently, all of the Walker children had to endure their mother’s “snuggling.” On the one hand, after reading this book, I understand better now why Siddalee was so messed up in adulthood and why she was so afraid to have children. But then this also makes it all the more baffling to me that Siddalee can forgive her mother in the second book!
I do see, now, why Ya-Ya was so necessary after this novel. First of all, because the children go from being bright, happy, and interesting characters to guarded, scarred, and eccentric adults, and for the most part it’s not very pretty. Siddalee, in the end, says that the way she gets through life on a day to day basis is with the mantra “don’t hit the baby” (meaning the baby inside her, the baby that is her psyche, or spirit, or whatever). What a precarious way to live. Second, Vivi and the Ya-Ya’s have the clear potential to be three dimensional and likeable characters in the first novel, but they kind of fail to live up to that potential. In the second book, we get to know them better and get to see that they are all just trying to survive like any other people, and we tend to cut them some slack and open ourselves up to laughter. Ya-Ya moves in the opposite direction as far as tone goes; it starts off darker, more screwed-up (because Siddalee is), and in the end the healing has finally begun for mother and daughter. It gives us something happy to hold on to.
Wells’ background is in theatre, and it really comes across well in her writing style. What I mean is that everything you read in both books has a very… kinesthetic tone. It moves! It sweeps, it meanders, it swims sometimes. Even though the subject matter is dark at times (actually, now that I think about it, quite often) it is delivered with a kind of humor that I’m tempted to call dark, but it really isn’t. She can write a scene that deals with very dark things and reveal the humor in it (such as Vivi’s mother, Buggy, and her near-psychotic attachment to her poodle Miss Peppy). The whole book is funny, for the most part. There are breaks in the humor when the reader gets somber, but then the laughter starts again.
Over all I would highly suggest this book to anyone who likes funny novels, who likes to read something with a little depth and a little darkness. Next time, I’ll be discussing The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. See you later!
the100bookmarch 