The Year of Women–in which I’m devoting 2021 to reading female authors only–continues with my introduction to Deesha Philyaw and her debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Published in 2020, this is a book that grows in richness with each entry. A lot of collections slot the best story first, sometimes using it as the title for the book. My favorite of Philyaw’s nine stories were the last, then second to last, then third to last. Each involves a Black woman in America exploring her precarious relationship with the church. Her stories progress from okay to good to great.
In Eula, 40-year-old Caroletta rings in New Year’s Eve 1999 in a hotel two towns over with her childhood friend Eula, who definitely does not think of herself as gay and clings to the Christian ideal of saving herself for a good husband, a life goal Caroletta gave up on long ago, much to her lover’s surprise.
In Not-Daniel, a daughter visiting her ailing mother in hospice carries on an affair in the parking lot with a married man she meets visiting his terminally ill mother at the same facility. The affair sparked when she initially mistook him for a boy she attended junior high school with named Daniel McMurray.
In Dear Sister, a woman writes a letter to her half-sister to notify her that Wallace “Stet” Brown, the wayward father they share with three other sisters, has passed away.
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