Audiobook Review
"It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time." So says Sidda, one of the characters inhabiting Little Altars Everywhere. Author Rebecca Wells uses her considerable acting talent to perform this abridgment, adding even more spark to her already lively characters. Everyone--Shep, Vivi, Willetta, and the rest--is given a distinct voice, and Wells plays each of them to the hilt. More like a recording of a one-woman show than a mere reading, Altars is an excellent example of how entertaining audiobooks can be. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney

From Publishers Weekly
The lineage of Wells's first novel can be traced directly to the "adult children" literature that has gained popularity in recent years. "I have one main rule for myself these days: Don't hit the baby. It means: Don't hurt the baby that is me. Don't beat up on the little one who I'm learning to hold and comfort . . . ," Siddalee says in the book's final chapter. Her voice, like those of the lesser narrators (sister, two brothers, parents, grandmother, blacks who work for the family), sounds increasingly contrived as the book progresses. The structure doesn't help matters, allocating one or two chapters to most characters--in Part I showing Siddalee and her siblings as children in Louisiana in the 1960s, in Part II the same characters 30 years later. Attempts at black dialect or small-town Louisiana slang are also superficial. The entire book consists of retellings, with little room (or incentive) for readers to share the action. There are some wonderful sections, such as when the grandmother's lap dog has a "hysterectomy," then learns to put dolls to bed as if they were her children, but such moments cannot sustain the reader's interest through more than 200 pages. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Wells's literary and theatrical talents are apparent in her account of the trials and triumphs of a fascinating but extremely dysfunctional family. Each chapter is told from the point-of-view of a different character, and Wells's provocative performance transforms the novel into a compelling one-woman show. Though Shep Walker, his wife, Vivi, and their four children derive a good living from Pecan Grove, 900 acres of rich Louisiana farmland, they are most successful at exacting and enduring suffering. Deceptively simple with its first-person narratives and everyday-language, the story explores such weighty issues as the loss of innocence, the traditional roles of women in the South, and the plight of farmers. Considering the phenomenal popularity of the companion novel, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, this is an essential purchase for all popular fiction collections.ABeth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
This charismatic book draws the listener into the lives of Vivi, Big Shep, Sidda and all the other characters from THE DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD. We hear about life in Thornton, Louisiana, along with reminiscences of adventures, trials and tribulations, all in exquisite Southern accents that are melodious and lulling in their tones. Yet they force the listener to pay attention to what the words mean, sorting accent from meaning. Wells's vivid characters spring out of the audiobook and into life. M.B.K. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews
A somewhat disjointed but appealing first novel--winner of the 1992 Western States Book Award for Fiction--set in the early 60's and 90's in small-town Louisiana. The story is narrated in turn by members of a curiously likable family--of terrible parents and unstrung kids--and by a pair of depressingly noble black servants. After a 1991 erotic dream tribute to Mama Viviane by daughter Siddalee, Part I begins with Siddalee, in 1963, telling of the Girl Scout camping weekend led by Mama and one of her ``Ya-Ya'' chums. (The Ya-Yas drink bourbon and branch water, play a kind of poker and shout and drink again, and call everyone ``Dahling'' like their idol Tallulah.) Meanwhile, those moments that ``came and went,'' the chances to be kind and set things right, are on the mind of Daddy, ``Big Shep,'' in his story. Both parents are awash in self- pity, feel threatened, and, to make things worse, Big Shep is not really one of the Old Boys, being Baptist (he talks to ``Old Podnah'' in the fields) and a farmer. Viviane feels no one knows what she really is and hates Siddalee's love of books: ``Life is not a book. You can't just walk away from it when it gets boring and you get tired.'' The parents drink away the silences within, while the children see all but don't really know all--until Part II and 1991, when they remember and examine their memories with hatred, bitterness, and, crazily, adult love. The servants disclose terrible cruelty; one son discloses sexual abuse; and another son pays witty tribute to the homeland and people in bitter cynicism and true affection. Wells's people pop with life, but it's quite a stretch from a sour mash Auntie Mame to an abusive Mommie Dearest without some fictional coherence; here, violence seems grafted rather than grown. But Wells's view of Mama Vivi and a Ya-Ya, bagged to the ears and rocketing down the road, is memorable. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
Little Altars Everywhere is a book that stuns - aesthetically, emotionally, psychologically. At its core is Siddalee's dysfunctional Southern family. Now thirty-eight, Siddalee lives in New York and tries to understand a childhood dominated by her beautiful, dramatic mother, Viviane, who drank and then beat and sexually abused her children. Then there's her father, Big Shep, an alcoholic as well, a sensitive Louisiana farmer who can never quite say what he wants, unless it's to yell at his wife. Siddalee's siblings have their own problems, and Willetta and Chaney, the black "help," have no power to save them. Chaney remarks: the "Only thing my Letta done lost sleep over is those children ... You hand-wash a family's underthings and you learn more about them than you ever want to." All of them tell their stories, packing full lives into anecdotes and scenes told as adults or remembered as children. Rebecca Wells takes those stories, so filled with pain, and makes beauty. After Siddalee allows her long, red hair to be cut on a drunken day, she lies out on the grass: "My heart starts pounding, my breath gets real tight, and I get all afraid. But I can feel the ground underneath me. And I tell myself: The earth is holding me up. I am lighter than I was before. My hair is like grass planted on the top of my head. If I can just wait long enough, maybe it will grow back in some other season." -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The companion to the beloved bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, here is the funny, heartbreaking, and powerfully insightful tale that first introduced Siddalee, Vivi, their spirited Walker clan, and the indomitable Ya-Yas.

FROM THE CRITICS

Denver Post

A gem of a book....Wells offers a virtuoso performance.

Seattle Weekly

Rebecca Wells' long-awaited first novel is a brilliant piece of work...a structural tour de force...a classic Southern tale of dysfunctional and marginal madness. The author's gift for giving life to so many voices the reader profoundly moved.

Pat Conroy

What an exciting new voice, and what a splendid first novel. Just wonderful!

Andrew Ward

Some writers have all the luck. Not only did Rebecca Wells get to be Catholic, she also got to come from Louisiana. This means that half of her is conversant with the Mystery, and the other half is crazy. Out of this chemistry she has written a brilliant, pungent, and hilarious novel about the Walker clan of Thornton, Louisiana. . . I'd like you to meet Miss Siddalee Walker, a force of nature and a tool of fate, and one of the sharpest-eyed little chatterboxes since Huckleberry Finn. Little Altars Everywhere teems with wonderful characters. . . But it's Wells' tireless and ruthless evocation of childhood combined with an unfailingly shrewd comic ear that makes Little Altars Everywhere such a thoroughly joyful and welcome noise.

Robert Moss - Seattle Times

Rebecca Wells' long-awaited first novel is a brilliant piece of work...a structural tour de force...a classic Southern tale of dysfunctional and marginal madness. The author's gift for giving life to so many voices the reader profoundly moved.Read all 17 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

What an exciting new voice, and what a splendid first novel. Just wonderful! — HarperCollins

Some writers have all the luck. Not only did Rebecca Wells get to be Catholic, she also got to come from Louisiana. This means that half of her is conversant with the Mystery, and the other half is crazy. Out of this chemistry she has written a brilliant, pungent, and hilarious novel about the Walker clan of Thornton, Louisiana...I'd like you to meet Miss Siddalee Walker, a force of nature and a tool of fate, and one of the sharpest-eyed little chatterboxes since Huckleberry Finn. Little Altars Everywhere teems with wonderful characters...But it's Wells' tireless and ruthless evocation of childhood combined with an unfailingly shrewd comic ear that makes Little Altars Everywhere such a thoroughly joyful and welcome noise. — HarperCollins