Two meetings in one

The Barga Book Club, hosted by the always convivial Julie Flynn, met in June and were enthralled with the presence of the author Tom Gabbay of The Tehran Conviction. A fascinating discussion was led by the author regarding the background, history and inspiration for his engaging story of intrigue in Tehran. Read the book is the simplest and best recommendation we can offer. It is excellent.

The July meeting was held on the new terrace of Isobel Dodds home to discuss Rebecca Wells' The Divine Secrets of The Yaya Sisterhood which was well reviewed and the recap of the meeting by Margaret Moore follows. Thank you to our wonderful host Isobel, everyone who participated and especially to Margaret for writing this summary.

The books chosen for the months of August and September respectively are the following: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.


This month’s book club meeting was kindly hosted by Isabel Dodds .
The book chosen for the July meeting was The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells. Discussion of the book centered on two aspects; the immense value of a group friendship which starts in childhood and lasts a life-time; and the rapport between mothers and daughters.
The very special kind of friendship described in this book is the YaYa Sisterhood, which is able to give support to all its members, without judging them, in the way that close sisters would. There is love and it is strong enough to survive any situation. This amazing group of southern Louisiana women, hemmed in by the conventions of their time, through the sisterhood are able to experience life in a different and more exciting way as they grow up together. Their lives are immeasurably enriched by it. As they get married their friendship encompasses each other’s families so that their children, the petite YaYas, have an extended family to turn to as well.
When one of the group has a breakdown and physically abuses her children, she is not judged by the others but is supported by them and helped to overcome this terrible event. It is this event that is the focus of the book. Because of the physical abuse she suffered on that occasion, Sidda, Vivi’s oldest girl, finds herself unable to commit. She leaves her partner and goes away for a period of time alone to think. She has argued with her mother whom she has publicly accused of hurting her although she remembers little in detail of what happened. Vivi sends her the scrapbook of the events of her life in the sisterhood. While Sidda ponders over these tokens of memory, and does indeed remember many good things, the other members of the sisterhood, now much older and physically fragile, arrive at her retreat. They are able to provide more information about the relics and Sidda learns the truth about what happened to Vivi. They also give her detailed information about many events in her childhood, and her mother’s burning love for her and her brother and sister are manifest. At the same time we learn about Vivi’s own experience with her mother. What is discipline to one generation is child abuse to the next.
The book struck many chords for most of us. Some remembered friendships that had lasted for a life time and other lamented the lack of such important and enriching relationships. It also called to mind our own relationship with our parents and the totally different kind that we have with our children. We are all products of our time as Sidda too came to understand. Breakdowns were once secret events, never mentioned; now most people who have this experience, see a psychiatrist, take medication, have therapy, sometimes group therapy and talk their way through it.
So, through the relationships formed in childhood that extended throughout a lifetime and encompassed a huge extended family, The YaYa Sisterhood, were able to enrich not only their own lives but those of their large families too. The general consensus was that this was a very beautiful book, though perhaps a ‘women’s’ book. The men in this book are peripheral and we see them only as they relate to their wives or daughters, not to each other. (Men’s comradeship seems to be of a different kind and related to external events especially stressful ones, as for example in war. )
Next month’s book is The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald