When Siddalee Walker, eldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker (Ya-Ya extraordinaire - part Scarlett, part Katherine Hepburn, part Tallulah) is interviewed about a hit play she has directed, her mother is described as a 'tap-dancing child abuser'. Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda - devastating her daughter who postpones her wedding and puts her life on hold until she is granted forgiveness. Trying to repair the relationship, the Ya-yas, Vivi's intrepid tribe of Louisiana girlfriends, sashay in and insist Sidda is sent 'The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood', a scrapbook of their lives together from a day in 1932 when they were disqualified from a Shirley Temple lookalike contest for unladylike behavior. Expected to raise babies, not Cain, the Ya-Yas are bonded for life in an unforgettable exploration of the complexity of mother-daughter relationships and the power of female friendship.

The reviews for this were really what I was attracted to. Yes it sounds like it should be on Oprah's book list rather than mine, but it actually does look like it might be a good read. There's also a recommendation from Tom Robbins, the author behind Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.

July 31st 2002
Up to page 48...I'm done, I can't take any more!

Here's what I wrote to Sarah when I tried to explain the vile atrocity that I inflicted upon myself.

So perhaps it's not clear yet, that I'm not overly taken with this book at all. It's years since I disliked a book so much that I didn't finish it. I asked a bunch of people who might have read it if it developed into a cracking story, or meandered along the same freaky route. Lots of them had heard of it, a few had been bought it (usually by well-meaning girlfriends who'd loved it) but not a single one had read it. I should have known.

I've had some fabulous women friends in my life; hell, I still have fabulous women friends. However they are all similar in that they don't indulge in the feminist bullshit that the women I was exposed to as a child thrived on. I suppose the one real gift that feminism gave my generation was the freedom to be ourselves. We don't have to play at being wives and mothers if that's not we want, and nor do we need to wear love beads and burn our bras.

This book, which I'm sure goes on to affirm femininity and independence, buys into the idea of female friendships without having any relation to the women I love. We don't live in a world where we lounge beside creeks surrounded by hoards of children, who never even skin their knees! Maybe I'm alone in never seeing my mother as an infallible Goddess that the world revolves around, but part of what I love most about my mother is seeing her flaws as well as her graces. Knowing her is what makes me love her, not putting her on an idealistic pedestal. Sidda's mother is on a pedestal so high it would cause a catastrophe approaching the K/T event should she crash to Earth! 

So many of the ideas in this book were alien to me; more made me feel physically ill. I realised very quickly that these were not women I was keen to spend time with, or whose crap I was willing to endue. However good the writing. The writing is good, wonderfully expressive (apart from the gratuitous moistness), and I just wish the author had used her talents to tell a different tale. Any other tale! Unless someone (whose judgment I value) tells me that there is a story worth reading here I very much doubt I'll turn to it again. I have little enough time already to read books that give me pleasure, and this did not do that!

Before I close, and don't give this my usual mark out of five, I want to share a real moment of female bonding. I was talking to my aunt this week, about my approaching birthday (29...ahhhh) and telling her how I don't feel old enough to be nearly 30. Her answer was so honest, and reassuring I couldn't stop thinking about it. She said that many wives and mothers go to bed at night and panic, thinking 'I'm not old enough to have children, to be a wife, to run a house' and yet they still do. My aunt is one of those women, and I think when I begin taking on those roles I will be too. That's the kind of assurance to pass on to the younger generation, not that the world should bow before you, nor that mothers are perfect and you have to live up to that image.