Little Altars Everywhere and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Little Altars Everywhere and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

I picked up both of these books from one of those “Free Little Libraries” that have been popping up in bougie-ish neighborhood. This one was in Edgewater, Chicago, on one of my longer daily walks. It was an overcast May morning. I had stuffed my raincoat into my bag, so it’s volume bulged out at my side. While walking around my neighborhood, I made a habit of stopping at every little library I came to. Normally, I would peer into every box, but never take anything, even if I wanted to. I still wouldn’t after this. I’m not sure why this morning was different, but I reached in and pulled out two books- Little Altars Everywhere-- and North by Northanger. I picked up North by Northanger because I had just finished reading Pride and Prejudice for the eighty-four thousandth time, but I’m not sure why I picked up Little Altars Everywhere. Maybe because the name sounded familiar, like the sound of a bell when the chimes are echoing in your ears. Or maybe I just liked the pink cover. Nevertheless, I wrapped them in my raincoat and put them in my bag to be thoroughly wiped down when I got home. The following day, under similar conditions, in the same box, I picked up The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I wrapped that one up too, brought it home, and all three books sat on my kitchen table for about three months. I finally got around to reading them in September, and here are my thoughts.

I read them back to back, in order of publication; this was partially a mistake. Little Altars Everywhere is a series of intersecting stories, each told from the perspective of a family member, or people connected to the family. It’s split into two sections: one in the 60s, when the children of the family are still kids, and the other in the 90s, when they are adults. While these stories will often reference events of other stories, they are also spaces for the inner lives of the narrator to grow. A father is unable to express his concern for his daughter; a young girl starts stealing, and everyone turns a blind eye; a man reckons with his childhood as he tries to raise his kids. Reading these stories, you understand the chasm between a person’s intentions and their actions. I’m glad I read this one first, as it’s focus is on the relationships between multiple family members, so it feels like a snapshot of their life.

The Divine Secrets has a wildly different structure. It’s focused on the relationship between the eldest daughter, Sidda, and her mother, Vivi. After very public criticism of her mother, Sidda works to repair her relationship with her mother while deciding the fate of her own engagement. The book is focused on their relationship, but especially on Vivi. As Sidda digs for her mother in a precious scrapbook, the book expands on these fragments to tell a fuller narrative of Vivi’s life. Her past and her experiences growing up are slowly uncovered, revealing how they carved her into the mother Sidda remembers, whose life force still refracts through her adult life. The book meshes the past and present well, as both mother and daughter go on their entangled emotional journeys decades apart.

Despite their differences, reading them back-to-back makes them feel like one story to me, neither would be complete without the other. There’s no set order in which to read them, but I’m glad I read Little Altars first. Like I said, it is a landscape of the family at two moments in time, while Divine Secrets is a portrait of a mother and daughter. The Divine Secrets doesn’t always assume you have the context of Little Altars, but to read it first would be to miss out on the dynamics of the rest of the family. My mistake was reading them back to back. As a warning, both books contain some depictions of both physical and sexual child abuse, often at the hands of Vivi. The pains of her past explain her behavior, but do not justify them. Starting Divine Secrets directly after finishing Little Altars, I wasn’t ready to sympathize with her, which is an issue when she is half of the book’s emotional equation. I should have allowed more time between reading each book, so I could get into emotional sync with the characters.

This book is for people who are a little insane, and can allow a little insanity in others.

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My Copies: Wells, Rebecca. Little Altars Everywhere. HarperPerennial, 1992. Get it Here!.

Wells, Rebecca. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Harper Paperbacks, 1997. Get it Here!

Background Images:

"Untitled" by Evi T. on Unsplash.

"Spirit Island" by Gabriel Perelman on Unsplash.