The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel

From Publishers Weekly Wells ( Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ) weaves more of the magic that made her a bestseller. At first, Calla Lily Ponder appears to be just like any other young woman growing up in the small town of La Luna, La., where life is simple and Calla Lily is supported by a loving, tightly knit family and a colorful cast of locals. But after a series of hometown heartbreaks, Calla Lily sets out for New Orleans to attend a prestigious beauty academy with dreams of one day opening her own salon. Calla Lily soon learns that while the Big Easy offers a fresh start, adventures and exhilarating new friends, it also presents its own set of tragedies and setbacks. The novel is chock-full of Southern charm and sassy wisdom, and despite its sugary sweetness, it benefits from a hearty dose of Wells's trademark charisma. Calla Lily's story may not be as involved or satisfying as that of the Ya-Yas, but she's sure to be a crowd-pleaser thanks to her humble aspirations, ever hopeful heart and perseverance no matter what fate throws at her. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. “ The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder will remind you of your first love and power of friendship. As the saying goes, ‘You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.’ But, really, you will.” — Real Simple “When readers are invited into novelist Rebecca Wells’ Louisiana, they follow as if led by the Pied Piper. Who can resist those moonlit nights, those swimming holes, that delicious cochon de lait, the dreamy little Louisiana towns, the women who are larger than life? Wells weaves that magic spell again.” — New Orleans Times-Picayune “Fans of Rebecca Wells’ tales of the ‘Ya-Ya Sisterhood’ will find themselves just as enchanted with this story full of Southern charm and lessons in life. . . . With wisdom and insight, Wells guides Calla on her path of self-discovery.” — Daytona Beach News-Journal “A novel full of miracles, with characters more colorful than a Crayola 64-crayon box. It’s just the right dose of Southern charm.” — Seattle Times “It’s hard not to fall in love with the people in this magical place, where love is as plentiful as the dancing, gumbo and ice-cold Cokes. . . . A perfect beach read about mothers and friends and sisters.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Many readers will recognize that all the characters . . . are creations of a literary goddess in her own right. . . . Down-to-earth and comforting . . . [A] good-hearted, wishful-thinking book.” — Washington Post “Charming and luminous . . . A perfect summer indulgence that’ll have you peeking out your window on a muggy night in search of the Moon Lady, who’ll wrap her nurturing arms around you from afar.” — Austin American-Statesman “Wide-eyed, big-hearted Calla has more faith than all the ya-yas put together. . . . As ever, the author’s strength lies in her ability to articulate the profound relationship between women.” — Miami Herald “Rebecca Wells spins a sweet Southern yarn about an aspiring beautician who overcomes tragedy to find love.” — Parade “[A] heaping helping of sugar . . . [for] when you’re feeling nostalgic for a sugarcoated past.” — USA Today “Calla Lily Ponder is every bit as affable as her name suggests. . . . Expect high demand from loyal Ya-Yas fans, who have eagerly awaited a new work from Wells.” — Booklist “Told in Wells’ signature style . . . Rich in anecdote and atmosphere . . . This is easily a three-hanky read. . . . the lessons of hope and promises of healing will be a balm to many.” — Bellingham Herald “Fiction junkies packing for vacation can without hesitation place The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder into the juicy reading pile. There’s period drama, there’s romance, and there’s a lot of fabulous hair all wrapped in a vibrantly Southern package.” — North Kitsap Herald “Another exuberant tale of Louisiana women . . . who can resist those moonlit nights, those swimming holes, that delicious cochon de lait, the dreamy little Louisiana towns, the women who are larger than life? Wells weaves that magic spell again.” — New Orleans Times-Picayune “All readers will embrace the themes of second chances.” — Library Journal “Rebecca Wells has done it again. . . . A new book full of Southern charm and unique characters . . . impossible to put down. . . . Wells delivers characters that are distinct and realistic.” — Houston Chronicle “Wells’s larger-than-life characters are custom made for summer reading.” — The Independent Weekly “The latest novel by Rebecca Wells, the belle of Southern fiction. . . . is a satisfying coming-of-age tale in a place where the moon glows and the lemonade flows.” — Columbus Dispatch “Wells knows how to paint a picture of small-town life and the wide world beyond that pulls at the heartstrings. Ya-Ya fans are likely to go gaga over The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder.” — Deseret News “Pure Southern comfort, and [Wells] continues the tradition.” — New York Daily News “Rebecca Wells is a master of . . . women’s fiction. . . . The novel teaches us that even the worst decisions can be rescued and that approaching the world with love will heal any brokenness in our hearts.” — Winnipeg Free Press “Wells delights in small-town life. . . . She makes the enchantment of daily life seem as plain as daylight.” — Richmond Times-Dispatch “[Wells’] descriptions are so lush and lyrical it feels like you could step through the pages into the hot, humid landscape so shaped by the Mississippi River.” — Denver Post Known for her beloved Ya-Ya books ( Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood , Little Altars Everywhere , and Ya-Yas in Bloom ), Rebecca Wells has helped women name, claim, and celebrate their shared sisterhood for over a decade. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood held the top of the New York Times bestseller list for sixty-eight weeks, became a knockout feature film, sold more than 5 million copies, and inspired the creation of Ya-Ya clubs worldwide. Now Wells debuts an entirely new cast of characters in this shining stand-alone novel about the pull of first love, the power of life, and the human heart's vast capacity for healing. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the sweet, sexy, funny journey of Calla Lily's life set in Wells's expanding fictional Louisiana landscape. In the small river town of La Luna, Calla bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood—until it is cut short. Her mother, M'Dear, a woman of rapture and love, teaches Calla compassion, and passes on to her the art of healing through the humble womanly art of "fixing hair." At her mother's side, Calla further learns that this same touch of hands on the human body can quiet her own soul. It is also on the banks of the La Luna River that Calla encounters sweet, succulent first love, with a boy named Tuck. But when Tuck leaves Calla with a broken heart, she transforms hurt into inspiration and heads for the wild and colorful city of New Orleans to study at L'Académie de Beauté de Crescent. In that extravagant big river city, she finds her destiny—and comes to understand fully the power of her "healing hands" to change lives and soothe pain, including her own. When Tuck reappears years later, he presents her with an offer that is colored by the memories of lost love. But who knows how Calla Lily, a "daughter of the Moon Lady," will respond? A tale of family and friendship, tragedy and triumph, loss and love, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder features the warmth, humor, soul, and wonder that have made Wells one of today's most cherished writers, and gives us an unforgettable new heroine to treasure. Writer, actor, and playwright Rebecca Wells is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Ya-Yas in Bloom , Little Altars Everywhere , and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood , which was made into a feature film. A native of Louisiana, she now lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Carolyn See Calla Lily Ponder is born in the little Louisiana town of La Luna, or The Moon, which borders on a meandering river of the same name. This is fitting because the town's inhabitants -- particularly Calla's mother -- are under the direct protection of the Moon Lady, a beneficent goddess who wishes nothing more for all of us than that we engage in the construction of our own souls and dance, every chance we get, under the light of the moon. And many readers will recognize that all these characters, including the Moon Lady, are creations of a literary goddess in her own right, Rebecca Wells, who gave us the beloved ladies of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and cheered up an entire generation of grateful female fans. Calla's mother, who dotes on her children, runs a beauty salon on the porch of her house: the Crowning Glory. Calla's parents also collaborate in running a dance studio, the Swing 'N Sway. Once a month, the entire town and folks from miles around come to spend the whole day dancing. La Luna is small, fewer than 2,000 people, but it supports these enterprises, as well as a general store and skating rink run by an eccentric (perhaps lesbian) woman who participated in a small piece of our national history. Back in the civil rights days, when Calla Lily was just a kid, she watched as this courageous store owner ran off an awful sheriff who had beaten an African American child. Here is the plot: Calla Lily enjoys an enchanted childhood until her mid-teens, when her beloved mother dies of cancer. Right around the time her mother takes sick, Calla falls mightily in love with a darling neighbor boy named Tuck, who is being raised by his kindly grandparents. (Tuck's dad, a homicidal drunk, is a major villain in the story.) Calla and Tuck plan to stay together forever, but to Calla's dazed surprise, Tuck goes off to Stanford after he graduates from high school. She's devastated, but she has already decided to follow in her mother's footsteps as a beautician. She embarks on her own great adventure -- heading out to the big city of New Orleans, where she becomes infatuated with Ricky, a gay hairdresser, attempting to entice him with homemade tuna casserole and voodoo powder. After this misunderstanding is cleared up, she, Ricky and his partner become fast friends. Calla then falls in love with Ricky's cousin, Sweet, who holds down a dangerous job ferrying workers and provisions to oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico. No one could make the argument that this novel isn't sappy. It's shamelessly sappy and eerily realistic; like listening to the airy ruminations of a sweet little girl who grows up to be a beautician. If Calla were talking to you on the phone, you might want to get off after 45 minutes. Calla's life is all about what happened to her, what people ate and what they wore. Male readers might want to pull out those ten-foot poles they carry around not to touch things with; highly educated women might feel the urge to turn up their noses as well, and the spiritually sophisticated among us might wince at all the homespun wisdom about kindness and forgiveness. But there's something down-to-earth and comforting about this novel. When Calla and her friend Sukey go to visit Ricky and Steve for brunch one morning, Calla devotes a page and a half to how the omelet is made and another half-page to how the table is set. When a funeral occurs, pages are devoted to what to wear, first to the viewing, then to the service. This may be an etiquette book, as well as a novel, a manual for correct living. A good portion of Calla's adventures have been thriftily recycled from Wells's earlier, one-woman show called "Splittin' Hairs." Calla's theatrical predecessor is Loretta Endless, a "pink-collar philosopher" who progresses from a little girl to a clueless vamp who tries to seduce a gay guy, then to an anti-nuclear activist. (In the novel, Calla gets upset with atom bombs and writes a polite letter to President Jimmy Carter, asking him to cease and desist his nuclear shenanigans.) The bad-sheriff episode is also recycled from the play. But, who cares? Many more people will read this novel than ever sat through the one-woman show. I think the audience for this good-hearted, wishful-thinking book is probably young mothers, staying home with their kids, beginning to feel the existential loneliness sink in and striving to make the best of the hands life has dealt. For them, being told to turn up the boombox and dance in the moonlight, trusting that life is basically good, may be sound advice indeed. Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. Read more