The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

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Triumphant. . . . Philyaw’s stories inform and build on one another, turning her characters’ private struggles into a beautiful chorus.” And you only believe that because of how another group of men interpret the first group of men. People say you’re supposed to put your faith in God, not men. Do you think God wants you, or anybody, to go untouched for decades and decades? For their whole lives? Like Sister Stewart, Sister Wilson, Sister Hill, my mother after my father died — all those women at church who think they have to choose between pleasing God and something so basic, so human as being held and known in the most intimate way. If God became human once—”

Wright, Wendeline O. (2020-09-10). "Deesha Philyaw's debut short story collection explores faith and fidelity". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 2020-10-18. KDL: Let’s talk about growing up in the South and the stories’ relationships to the South. First, when exactly did you leave? The title refers to the catch-all term for church-going women that Philyaw learned growing up. [3] These women were prim, conservatively dressed, and those "who make[] sure not a hair is out of place, never speak[] out of line, and does all the right Godly things." [4] I look at Eula, her no-longer-fresh ringlets damp from the time spent between my legs. As I think about her question, something both cruel and pitiful churns inside me and threatens to spill out. Since when does she know or care anything about my happiness? Anything at all about it? The nine stories in this collection are sometimes funny, sometimes frank and defiantly sexual, and sometimes poignant. Philyaw’s characters are daring to live their lives the way they want, but it often takes them a while to get there, and it sometimes requires reconciling their religion with their desires.

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Williams, John (2020-10-06). "National Book Awards Finalists Announced". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-10-22.

Mayer, Petra (2020-10-06). "Charles Yu, Kacen Callender Among National Book Award Finalists". NPR.org . Retrieved 2020-10-18. In Peach Cobbler, a bright high school senior named Olivia accepts a job tutoring a classmate, the athlete son of the town pastor. Olivia knows the pastor well, having come home for many years to find him eating the prized peach cobbler her hardened mother bakes and listening to her mother entertain the married pastor in bed.taps 🎙️* Is this thing on? Yes? Ok. Let me introduce you to your new favorite author - Deesha Philyaw. Deesha isn't a new author, she's been writing for a minute, but what she does in The Secret Lives is something special. She flips the script and portrays "good church girls" as the real women and girls they are, not some perfect beings who worship at the altar 24/7 and never let their slip show. There were the ways we talked to and about each other. When each of the characters spoke, I could hear them. I could hear my grandmother in the older characters, which were some of my favorite characters to write. Like Granny in my story “Jael,” even though neither my grandmother nor great-grandmother were religious. I can hear other older people as they were quoting the Bible, but there were certain rhythms and reflections and things that my grandmother would say and the way she reacted to things. I thought, “That was totally my grandmother.” I can still hear her voice, and she’s been gone since 2005. Jael” (113) is narrated in alternating sections by a teenager named Jael and her great-grandmother and guardian, Granny. Granny begins reading Jael’s diary and finds that she is sexually attracted to women, specifically their church pastor’s wife. As Granny continues reading Jael’s diary and thinks about how to save her from a life of sin, Jael spends time with her friend Kachelle and Kachelle’s much-older boyfriend, Jamie, a sexual predator who Jael eventually murders by causing a gas leak in his house. Granny finds out about this event via Jael’s diary. Granny considers that Jamie was a bad man, thinks to herself that killing is still a sin, and worries about Jael being caught by the police.

This Remarkable 1930s Lesbian Journalist Was Snubbed in Her Lifetime. Now a Novel Based on Her Work Has Won the National Book Award. And you only believe that because of how another group of men interpret the first group of men. People say you're supposed to put your faith in God, not men.’” 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. Another “kernel” of her own life in Church Ladies is Philyaw’s identity as a queer woman, a label she has only just started to use. Despite “queer” feeling more accurate than “straight” in terms of her desires and life experiences, she was reluctant to use the word. “I felt like I was claiming something that I had no right to claim, because I had all of these privileges and protections, having been married to men twice.” She recently sought “permission” to call herself queer from LGBT+ friends and family. “They reminded me that I don’t have to answer to anybody.” I am happy,” I say, coaxing my voice out to sound braver than I actually feel. “Right now. Right here. With you. And it doesn’t have to be just this one night. We could—”

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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. 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. Some say they don't want to get invested in characters for such a short amount of time. I used to feel the same way until I discovered that in the right hands, short stories can be just as powerful as full-length novels. 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. Philyaw’s book is the winner of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Recently, it was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Foundation’s 2021 Legacy Award, and it made the 2020 National Book Awards’ Shortlist for Fiction. She is also co-writing and co-producing (along with Tessa Thompson) an HBO Max adaptation.