Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Louisiana blood: An interview with Rebecca Wells

Sarah K Wood
The Daily Advertiser
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood novel cover

Books Along the Teche Literary Festival is taking over downtown New Iberia this weekend, celebrating the mystique of Louisiana culture and Southern writers of all genres — including the 2019 Great Southern Writer, Rebecca Wells.

Born in Alexandria, Wells is an LSU graduate, an accomplished novelist, actor and playwright who is well-known for her "Ya-Ya" series, especially the 1995 No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Novel "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

The novel, intertwined with Louisiana lore, dives into the complex mother-daughter relationship of fictional characters Vivi and Siddalee "Sidda" Walker and the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Vivi, queen of the "Ya Yas," created with childhood friends (who are as loyal to their pack as they are to life itself).

The novel became a cult classic to readers across the nation and is still enjoyed with fresh enthusiasm.  

In the early 2000s, the novel caught the attention of Bette Midler, who spearheaded the push for the book to be transformed into a film in 2002. The moive starred Ellen Burstyn and Sandra Bullock as mother-daughter main characters Vivi and Sidda.

According to an interview with Deep South Magazine, Wells’ story on the Ya-Yas began in 1990 when a broken foot kept her from performing in her play “Gloria Duplex.” Off her feet, she wrote a collaboration of short stories titled "Little Altars Everywhere" that published in 1992. "Little Altars Everywhere" is the prequel to "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and debuted the Walker family that is brought to life through the Ya-Ya series.

I reached out to speak with Wells on her homeland, Louisiana, her bestselling novel, and exciting new literary pieces she has in the works.

It is an honor to speak with this Louisiana legend who sings poetry from the heart of an eccentric soul and isn’t afraid to embellish her state in the worship it deserves.

Sarah Wood: What is your favorite thing about South Louisiana?

Rebecca Wells: The people, with graciousness, resilience and willingness to recognize life itself as one big fais do-do. Solo Cajun fiddle waltzes, blue-eyed soul. The brown pelican, green sea turtles, and gray fox. The dear threatened wetlands, our lungs, our kidneys…

My least favorite thing is the environmental destruction. The fact that Louisiana loses the equivalent of a football field of wetlands at a rate of 38 minutes makes me one of my deep sadness.

SW: How do you feel being nominated and celebrated as the 2019 Great Southern Writer for the Books Along the Teche Literary Festival?

RW: Joyful and grateful and perhaps a little nervous. I am aware that I stand on the shoulders of my mother and her gang of girlfriends, The Hee-Hees — inspiration for the Ya-Yas — and also on the shoulders of the writers who came before me.

It also feels affirming for my home state to celebrate my work. It has not been easy for me to acknowledge my accomplishments. This is one of the gifts the Festival gives to me: in being honored, I am helped along to honor myself. 

When the Ya-Yas took flight, I didn’t believe I deserved the attention. I felt like I had in some essential way deserted my tribe. It has not come easy for me to honor myself, to acknowledge and give myself credit for the very hard work I did with my own psyche in order to write each book. Now I see that I’m really just a slightly out of tune, upright piano that Love can play to make its music. When I’m in Love’s music, slipstream, the burden to be perfect and/or to write another hugely successful No. 1 bestselling novel lifts. So it’s all a matter of growing one’s faith, you know?

I am grateful for the rapture and beauty and toxicity that I grew up in; it means that not only will I never lack material to write about, but that I will be in therapy until the day I die. I feel sad that the fossil fuel industry is trying to kill my sweet home state.  I want the Louisiana pelican to be worshiped, not Exxon.

I think it is too late for the planet in terms of dodging the bullet of global warming.  We can, however, try to minimize the damage, try to stop at least some little bit of suffering.  We must tell legislators that we value life over death.

Another big thing: I had an epiphany in October after which nothing has been the same.  Mercy Wells, the dog, sailed away last April, on Shakespeare’s birthday. Six months later, I was at a person’s house for dinner. I watched this person pick up a piece of barbecue chicken, pull the leg from the thigh, and begin to gnaw on the chicken’s leg. In that moment I saw that the chicken leg was Mercy’s leg. I saw what it means to eat a beloved creature. I had been vegetarian for a very long time, but that moment turned me vegan — it made it so that I can no longer support killing or inflicting suffering on any creature to feed, clothe, or entertain me. I believe that we are all family on this little planet. You don’t eat members of your family. I’m particularly grateful to the Festival for bending over backwards to accommodate my vegan requests.

SW: What has been your favorite part of the journey as a best-selling author?

Rebecca Wells, author of Bestselling novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

RW: Well, jumping on the bed in the bridal suite at the I.M. Pei Four Seasons in Manhattan and ordering lots of food and drinks for my friends and charging everything to Rupert Murdoch was pretty darn fun, but my favorite part of the journey is right now. 

I live now in a slow, quiet coming-to-see that in my attempts to metabolize my pain and my joys, I have done some good in the world. I hope I can do it again. Ram Dass, one of my spiritual teachers, said, 'After all, we’re just walking each other home.' That’s how I see my work, readers and me — walking each other home.

SW: How did you feel when your book was chosen to be transformed into a movie?

RW: That was a dizzying time. I was living for a nine-month stretch in 1997-98 in Goudeau, Louisiana, in the house of the grandmother of my dear friend Cary Long, who has since sailed away.

It was dial-up Internet connection, getting up at 5 a.m. for Earl Grey tea, reading and writing and dancing to swamp pop on the radio in the kitchen. And then, Whoa, the Ya-Yas were on the bestseller list and Bette Midler wanted to make the movie and whoa again, look at those huge bouquets of sunflowers that the floral delivery folks have left on top of the washing machine on the carport with notes calling me “The Divine Miss R.” And everything moved so fast. 

It felt like a hot white light was aimed at me, and then I got sick and didn’t know why, and kept on going in the fastness of it all, and I became sicker and sicker until boom, I fell down. Seven years later, we learned it was a tick that got me, a tick helped along with an immune system run ragged by book tours.

Check for ticks. Tuck your pants into your socks.  Never go out in the grass wearing open-toed sandals. Lose all cool and don’t let ticks suck your life away.

SW: Do you feel the movie interpretation of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood fits your novel on point?

RW: I asked of the movie the two questions that I ask myself about not only every work of art but of every life experience:

'Does it make me laugh? Does it make me cry? Does my heart constrict or open wider?'

The movie made me laugh and made me cry. It opened my heart.  And Ashley Judd’s translation of Vivi Abbott Walker on screen taught me more about what I had written and made me feel even more love for Vivi and for my own mother than before.

SW: Where do you find inspiration for your novels?

RW: Each one of my books is at one level about the search to be held by the Divine Mother, the Sacred Feminine, by Love itself.  I am especially grateful to Dr. Mary Ann Wilson, a retired professor at ULL, whose essay about my work in the book Louisiana Women. Her perception of my work as spiritual journey is one of the most astute observations I have encountered. She will present at the festival. See her; she’s pure.

SW: Stemming from your days before the release of your best-selling book, what would you tell that younger you?

RW: I would tell her:

“Little Darlin, you are worthy of love. As the saying goes: Life is not a dress rehearsal.  This is it. Accept every situation. Do not assume every mess is your fault. When you are tired, sleep. When you are hungry, eat. When people are mean, walk out of the room if that’s what makes you feel better. When you are anxious, breathe and pray. If you feel like you are about to have a nervous breakdown, take a nap instead. Be gentle with the parts of you that are the most fragile. Remember the fortune cookie that Burke gave you in August 1982 that read: ‘Dare freely from lightness of heart.’ The authentic world is waiting to embrace you. Your work is a gift, not a commodity. You are a gift and not a thing that exists to make money for others. There is a universe of Love waiting at the door that is patiently waiting for you to let Her in." 

*Note: My use of the personal pronoun where the impersonal is commanded by the Word Police expresses my belief that most of what we call an “it” is animate, not a “thing.”  A car is an “it,” a cellphone is an “it.”  Mercy, the spaniel who shared her life with me for many years before sailing away last spring, was not an “it”. Neither is the Bayou Teche. I guess, depending on the needs of your own heart and soul, the Teche could be either a masculine or feminine pronoun. Guess which one I use.

SW: Do you have any other novels in the works that our readers should be on the lookout for? If so, what are they about?

RW: Yes, yes. "Divine Daughter of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," the book I’m currently writing, which focuses on Siddalee Walker, daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, queen of the Ya-Yas. Sidda is kind of a fictional me, as one writer has termed it.

Today, Wells lives in Nashville, Tennessee. See her in person at this Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Books Along The Teche Literary Festival to hear her speak on her Ya-Ya series or catch the free movie screening at 4 p.m. 

Click here to see the full schedule of events for the 2019 Books Along The Teche Literary Festival.