Review: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

Rebecca Wells' Latest Louisiana-Based Book is a Nice Summer Read

Aug 11, 2009

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is a sweet tale of healing, but Rebecca Wells' latest novel may not be what readers are expecting

Calla Lily Ponder is a girl with a dream: to fix hair and hearts at a beauty salon as her mother does. Her childhood and adolescence on the banks of the La Luna River is spent with her family and friends, her sweetheart Tuck, watching her parents teach at their dance studio, and assisting her mother M'Dear at the Crowning Glory Beauty Porch, where hair is done, manicures applied, and neighbourhood women congregate to share news and baked treats.

The novel, inspired by "Splittin' Hairs", Wells' first play, is an account of Calla's life in La Luna and New Orleans, her loss of various loved ones, and her discovery of herself while studying at L'Académie de Beauté de Crescent.

There are healthy doses of quirky beauty school lessons, Southern culture, and romance throughout. Fans of Rebecca Wells' previous work may not be wholly satisfied, but The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is still a quick and (mostly) enjoyable read.

Like Wells' Ya-Ya books, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is set in Louisiana in the 1950s and onwards. But the similarities don't end there: life in a small town, the pace of life in La Luna, and even the characters themselves are heavily reminiscent of the Ya-Ya novels. Calla's best friend Sukey is a dead ringer for the exuberant and exhibitionist Ya-Ya, Teensy (with an amplified drinking problem and less money). Calla herself may remind readers of the sweet and optimistic Ya-Ya, Necie. And of course, Calla is watched over by the same Moon Lady as in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. But she is a personality all her own, and her story is definitely different from those of the Ya-Ya world.

While the Ya-Ya books are all collective memoirs of the Walker clan, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is a straightforward narrative of Calla Lily's life. The novel reads a little bit like the diary of a teenaged girl, but this tone is part of Calla's character. She's frank and often naive, so the narration can come across as overly sweet but, love her or hate her, this is the kind of person that Calla Lily Ponder is.

Despite the various tragedies in her life, things seem to come easily to Calla. Embarrassing situations, dead ends, relationship meltdowns – Calla seems to coast through life with a minimum of fuss. The novel feels a little uneven, with great attention to detail in some parts and skimming over events in others. The violent beating of a black boy by a white sheriff shocks and confuses a young Calla, but issues of race, (in the South, in the sixties), never surface again. These incidents are episodic and feel more like interruptions rather than a part of the story.

Some might find the novel's tone and Calla's constant fortuitousness a tad fluffy, and lacking the depth of plot and character that Wells created in Divine Secret of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; others will applaud Calla Lily's simple good nature and the novel's message of healing and perseverance. Either way, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is a nice light summer read.

About Rebecca Wells: Life in Louisiana and Beyond

Rebecca Wells is a native of Alexandria, Louisiana, now living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their King Charles Cavalier Spaniel named Mercy. Although she's famous for her Louisiana-based novels, Wells has traveled extensively for study, work, and to see the world: hitchhiking across the U.S., jazz piano in Paris, waitressing in Boston, studying consciousness and the mind in Colorado, and acting in New York City.

She wrote her first novel, Little Alters Everywhere, while nursing a broken foot and unable to dance or act. This bestseller was followed by the success of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Ya-Yas in Bloom.

Sometime during this period, Wells was diagnosed with Lyme disease, which greatly affected her mobility and energy levels, but, as she says on her personal website, her writing became a part of her treatment: "To finish Ya-Yas in Bloom I had to accept the situation I was in and find ways to work that respected my limitations. . . . Like any act of creation, whether baking a pie or chopping wood, creativity can dispel the dark.Ya-Yas in Bloom reminds me that miracles are possible for me, right here, right now."

Wells is now actively involved in promoting Lyme disease awareness, and continues to write novels.

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