The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

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I would have preferred different narrators so there was more distinction between the stories and the characters telling each story, who varied greatly in age. The opening story, Eula, directly confronts the ways the Church’s insistence on purity is emotionally damaging.

For God is everywhere in these stories, or at least those who use God to enforce their ideas of polite society on others. The powers that be are, for example, that philandering pastor, a fat-shaming mother, and a diary-snooping great-grandmother. While there are freedoms—urgent, necessary freedoms—that can be achieved by striving toward fulfilling private, sometimes secret, desires, there are also freedoms that can only be won through collective struggle.I know when I post about short stories, I hear from a lot of people that they either can’t get into them or have never read any before. She described how difficult it is for southerners to come to grips with snow and cold when they live in the north.

There are battles between their desires and those obstacles that get in the way more often than not. Deesha Philyaw’s collection of nine stories about church ladies is fresh, tender, biting, raw, deeply moving and just downright beautiful.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The love in Philyaw’s stories runs the gamut from sweet to bitter, sexy to sisterly, temporary to time tested, often with hidden aspects.

All the stories are told through the point of view of Black women, and most of them are filled with quiet rage. You want him to be the one you’ve been waiting for, and you want him to feel the inevitability of you as well. In The Secret Lives of Church Ladies we meet women and girls who are exploring their sexuality, while trying to be that “good girl”.

These are an emotionally satisfying, astonishing, and joyous set of intimate, complex and personal stories to immerse yourself in, from a talented author that will make you laugh and cry, with characters you can invest in, their strength, resilience, vulnerabilities, and bravery. Philyaw portrays “church ladies” as real people struggling with morality like the rest of us, some for better, some for worse, but all human beings. In 2020, Philyaw told Olivia’s story, along with eight others, in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, her debut collection. Think of your favorite dish: yes, there’s that feeling of needing to savor every morsel, appreciate all the flavors.