The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

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The complicated lives of these women begins with “Eula.” On the eve of Y2K, Caroletta prepares to meet her best friend Eula at a hotel. It’s their annual New Year’s Eve ritual: a suite, good eats, and bottles of André Spumante to ring in the new year. Their conversations turn to relationships and love, and both of these 40-year-old women have different ideas about what that means. Eula wants to date to find the husband that God has for her and live in a traditional, Biblical family. For Caroletta, love is whoever and whatever she wants—and that includes Eula, her part-time lover. Williams, John (2020-10-06). "National Book Awards Finalists Announced". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-10-22. Ms. Philyaw was raised in Florida, as I was, and several of these stories take place there. I could relate to so much. . . the food, the eclectic neighborhoods, being raised on cheesy shows like Dallas and Dynasty, too. You stand up and pull down your skirt and panties. “Rumi wrote of an intuitive love of God, and he was a Muslim,” you say. “But people like to strip away the Islam from his work.”

And you realize that if God were to welcome everyone into heaven, your mother would abandon Christianity immediately” At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta’s “same time next year” arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other. The subtitle to this one could have easily been WHERE THE BOYS AREN'T, so a heads-up to male readers: you may not want to go here, unless you finally want to understand why we so often hate you. You chide yourself for walking too far ahead—for regressing into eighties song lyrics territory so soon.These are the kind of short stories that make me glad that I’ve given short stories a chance these last few years. My biggest issue with many short stories is the feeling that the story needs completing. While I didn’t love every story equally ( hard to do with a collection), just about every one felt complete . That’s not to say that I didn’t want more of Deesha Philyaw’s characters and writing. Any of these characters could fill a novel and I’m hoping for more fiction from this talented writer. We are welcomed to this collection by Caroletta, narrator of EULA. Caroletta knows exactly who she is; A woman who in love who should be in a longstanding relationship, but her supposed partner, Eula, is playing. Caroletta knows the men they have been entertaining all these years ain't shit & knows that time would no longer be wasted if Eula would just quit trying to float along that thin line of grace. You both begin to doze. At some point you wake up, with your head in his lap and your mind in overdrive. You think about your art show opening tomorrow. You imagine looking at him from across the gallery floor as he looks at your work; introducing him to your girlfriends, your colleagues, your students. And your mother. You think that even if today and tomorrow were all there was, that would be okay. But then you hear your therapist’s voice asking what you feel, not think, right now. And you struggle at first to find the words before settling on warm, hopeful, joyous, full. Daughter. Housekeeper. Cook. Babysitter. Nurse. Slave. That’s what she felt like…Meanwhile her brothers Rico and Bruce had been called by their given names and did only what they pleased.’

This collection took Deesha Philyaw years to write and compile, and I can only say: thank you. Thank you for caring about me enough as a reader not to waste my time. And the church was no match for Eddie Levert. The O’Jays were still Mama’s favorite group, and Eddie Levert was still her favorite in the group. Mama B.C. (Before Church) would tell her girlfriends Miss Nancy and Miss Lajene, “Eddie Levert can have me anytime, anywhere, and anyway he want it, honey! You hear me?” And they would all fall out laughing.This is no mere collection of sappy romance stories. The love in Philyaw’s stories runs the gamut from sweet to bitter, sexy to sisterly, temporary to time tested, often with hidden aspects. The word secret in the title is earned, and some of the secrets are downright juicy.” How do you make love to a physicist? You send him an apology in the form of one of the many sketches of him you have made, in a silver frame. He doesn’t respond right away. And you’re okay with that; you knew the risk you ran, disappearing the way you did. But when he does reach out, you’re both quiet on the phone for a long time before you say, “It’s just something I had to do. For me. I didn’t have the words for it then, and I’m not entirely sure I do now.” Mayer, Petra (2020-10-06). "Charles Yu, Kacen Callender Among National Book Award Finalists". NPR.org . Retrieved 2020-10-18. You deflate a little. You want him to be the one you’ve been waiting for, and you want him to feel the inevitability of you as well. You want to be his default, not an option. You want the promises of a new religion.

Sex between women AIN'T NEVER BEEN SEXIER, Y'ALL, and I'm wishing, as I so often do, that I had been born gay, but, alas. . . After he drops his luggage into your trunk and closes it, he turns to you and says, “Finally.” And you say, “Finally.” And he draws you into his arms and kisses you. His lips are as soft as you thought they would be. But truly all of them had astute observations of womanhood, complex relationships between mothers and daughters, love and the church. It was messy and realistic and beautifully written. White, Peter (2021-10-05). "Tori Sampson Boards Tessa Thompson & HBO Max's 'The Secret Lives Of Church Ladies', Will Write & EP With Deesha Philyaw". Deadline . Retrieved 2021-10-20. The stories of these women and their friendships come alive, beating with tenderness and imperfection, and build upon one another to create a beautiful melody of female determination.”But maybe you should question the people who taught you this version of God. Because it's not doing you any favors.” Peach Cobbler,” arguably the most gripping story, follows the mother-daughter relationship between Olivia and her mother, who prepares a peach cobbler for God every Monday. Olivia soon reveals that it’s not God for whom her mother bakes the cobbler, but her married pastor, who she once believed was the deity until she saw his humanity for what it was—fallible. Olivia’s mother chooses to put all her energy in pleasing and loving this man at the cost of neglecting her daughter, who isn’t allowed to eat the cobbler. Watching her mother make the dessert, Olivia thinks: “I wanted to be those peaches. I longed to be handled by caring hands. And if I couldn’t, I wanted the next best thing: to make something so wonderful with my own hands.”

Being very accessible and an easy read makes it even more impressive. I found myself wondering several times who is this woman who writes so well? Every single one of these stories were flames! Every. Single. One. Not one of them fell below a four star rating for me. I especially loved:

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This compact, darling of a collection that fit so nicely in my hand reminded me so much of my all-time favorite collection of short fiction, J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. Not in theme, tone, or time-period, but in its execution. Who Fears Deathtells the coming of age tale of Onyesowu in post-apocalyptic North Africa where her story makes her an outcast. She must go on a journey from self-reproach to love, but to do so she’ll have to overcome untold obstacles—defeating her hated sorcerer father and becoming the instrument of prophetic deliverance for a land of oppressed people, all the while fighting to master the terrifying powers growing inside her.