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rosalind's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Graphic: Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Dementia, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Alcoholism, Racial slurs, Violence, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
hollyd19's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a collection of short stories that spotlights Black women of various ages as they push against prescribed narratives & wrestle with purpose, sexuality, and worth. One endorsement described the collection as “cheeky and insightful” and I second that. I can’t say every story was for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed How to Make Love to a Physicist, Peach Cobbler, Snowfall, and Instructions for Married Christian Men. The stories are rich, artistically diverse, and deeply human.
I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn’t have been, given the word ‘secrets’ in the title) by how heavily sex factored in nearly all the stories. It was never gratuitous or explicit, but it did play a much larger role than I had expected. Additionally, I had the impression that the collection would be more... fun? Honestly, for the most part I found it fairly bleak. That’s not to say it wasn’t tender and at times funny, but most stories left me feeling rather melancholy. Each woman featured faces some significant strain — emotionally, relationally, etc — and I would have loved at least one story to be robustly joyful (the closest is How To Make Love to a Physicist). Finally, there is ample mention of church life & culture, but I wouldn’t define any of the protagonists as “church ladies.” They are all church-lady-adjacent, but perhaps that was Philyaw’s chosen device: a window into the lives of church ladies from those who are in some way outside the fold.
I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn’t have been, given the word ‘secrets’ in the title) by how heavily sex factored in nearly all the stories. It was never gratuitous or explicit, but it did play a much larger role than I had expected. Additionally, I had the impression that the collection would be more... fun? Honestly, for the most part I found it fairly bleak. That’s not to say it wasn’t tender and at times funny, but most stories left me feeling rather melancholy. Each woman featured faces some significant strain — emotionally, relationally, etc — and I would have loved at least one story to be robustly joyful (the closest is How To Make Love to a Physicist). Finally, there is ample mention of church life & culture, but I wouldn’t define any of the protagonists as “church ladies.” They are all church-lady-adjacent, but perhaps that was Philyaw’s chosen device: a window into the lives of church ladies from those who are in some way outside the fold.
Graphic: Chronic illness, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Dementia, and Grief
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual content, and Violence
Minor: Murder
sherbertwells's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
“People say you’re supposed to put your faith in God, not men. Do you think God wants you, or anybody, to go untouched for decades and decades? For their whole lives? Like Sister Stewart, Sister Wilson, Sister Hill, my mother after my father died—all those women at church who think they have to choose between pleasing God and something so basic, so human as being held and known in the most intimate way” (10)
Let’s get one thing straight: this book was not written for me.
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, is a celebration of Black women and their sexuality. I’m an asexual Catholic white girl who couldn’t be considered attractive if she had North and South poles. But I like to read, especially about religion and the individual, and one of my English let me borrow a copy of this book (thanks, Ms. Saunders!).
So here I am reviewing The Secret Lives of Church Ladies! Spoiler alert: it’s pretty darn good.
The stories are unabashedly sexual, but the depiction of sex is not gratuitous. Philyaw’s protagonists face bigotry from all sides, including from the Black Church to which they (nominally) belong. The bedroom is one of the few places where they can unashamedly be themselves.
“Note: in the event I do start to fall for you, you will know because I’ll stop responding to your text messages. This is for the best.
The austere tone of these instructions aside, I actually like you and can’t wait to fuck you. If I didn’t like you, if the thought of you didn’t make my panties wet, we wouldn’t be here” (154)
I have no clue whether the depiction of sex is accurate or not, but I can appreciate how Philyaw portrays food. In the story “Peach Cobbler,” for example, the main character’s mother bakes a dessert “so good, it made God himself cheat on his wife” (39). Meanwhile, “Snowfall” demonstrates an acute nostalgia for boiled blue crabs. While I’ve never had either dish, I can appreciate how they both add spice to the deliciously-complicated relationships between the characters that make them.
In general, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies excels at portraying interesting interpersonal relationships. My favorite story was “How to Make Love to a Physicist,” which follows a middle-aged art teacher who meets her soulmate at a STEAM conference but feels too self-conscious to open up to him. My Dad almost majored in physics (he got his PhD in math), so I can testify that the method of courtship is accurate. Both characters are huge nerds, and it’s a joy to see where their relationship takes them.
The story uses a second-person narrator, which I’ve never encountered outside of fanfiction before, to devastating effect. The opening question—”How do you make love to a physicist”—turns from a hypothesis into a plea as it is repeated.
Other stories that play with format are pretty cool too. “Instructions for Married Christian Husbands” manages to pack an emotional arc into a how-to-list. “Jael” juxtaposes the voices of a teenage girl and her religious grandmother, who is disgusted by her grandaughter’s homosexuality. Utilizing these formats is a fun way for Philyaw to challenge the hierarchies in which her characters live. But most of the stories in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies are literary fiction, and that’s not my favorite genre.
Nor is the straightforward prose, which clips along nicely but doesn’t stand out I also wish the stories featured more theology, but I understand that not every reader (or character) wants to get so nitty-gritty. As I said before, the stories weren’t written with me in mind, and they shouldn’t be. It’s obvious that they’re well-written anyway.
This year, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies won the English PEN/Faulkner award. Whether it will stand the test of time remains to be seen. I hope it does. Like organized religion, it’s got some really great elements, and it might just give meaning to a vast, complicated literary world.
“You take a moment to soak it all in. You think of your mother and the small version of God she clings to, the only version you’ve ever known and the one you’re afraid to let go of. Then you think of how your daily calls with Eric are a kind of ritual, and how when you finally meet up again, it could be a kind of consecration. You are thrilled and terrified at the prospect. Terrified because all you’ve ever known of religion is that it demands more than you can ever give”
Graphic: Infidelity, Racial slurs, Sexual content, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Homophobia and Violence
Minor: Abortion
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