The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Philyaw lends significant nuance to the portrayal of mother-daughter relationships in this book of short stories. In some cases, the daughter is doing the mothering rather than the other way around, or the mother is unaccepting of the daughter’s identity, among other mother-daughter situations. “Peach Cobbler” is an example of a mother-daughter relationship where the daughter is being held back by the beliefs of her mother. Her mother is her sole guardian, and she believes for most of her childhood years that she cannot question her mother and the rules she puts in place. The mother is projecting her life experience onto her daughter and keeps her from experiencing certain things to protect her from disappointment. The daughter in “Peach Cobbler” learns from her mother what not to do in future relationships. She learns certain things from her mother, like how to bake the perfect peach cobbler, but there are many other things that she does not want to carry with her into the future.

The mother-daughter relationship in “Snowfall” is also fraught because the daughter loves her mother while also realizing that her mother can never fully love her back because she won’t accept her queer identity. Arletha says to her partner at the end of the story, “the space my mother has left for me isn’t big enough for two” (94). She faces the choice of going back to familiarity with her mother or to stay and build her new home and identity with her partner. The tension in this mother-daughter relationship shows that even though a mother’s love is unlike anything else, it can have its faults and exceptions.

In this book, mothers are often stuck in the past and stuck in a certain way of thinking about things, especially those who were raised in the church. In “How to Love a Physicist,” we see Lyra’s mother being controlling about the way Lyra dresses when going to church. She learned not to be comfortable in her own body because of the way her mother was taught; mothers pass down their ways of thinking to their daughters, which their daughters then must process and break down in their own lives. Daughters are the recipients of the traditions of their mothers, whether good or bad. In “When Eddie Levert Comes,” the protagonist is literally defined by her relationship to her mother; she is known by everyone as “Daughter.” She is bound throughout her life by the behaviors and impulses of her mother, even after her mother is old and sick. Her mother determined the mood of Daughter’s life, never allowing her to be fully separate from her. Mothers and daughters in this book are inextricably connected, and one determines the others’ actions.

Home is a major theme in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, whether a literal home or a metaphorical home. In “Snowfall,” the main characters migrate to a new home in the city, away from their families in the South where they grew up. The two women are lesbians in a relationship, and the city is a safer, more accepting place for them to be overall. But still, it does not mend the hole that comes from being away from what they know and what they’re familiar with.

The people they meet have a misconception about their home in the South and imagine that they’re wholly better off to have left; “They imagine where we come from and see Confederate flags and rednecks and dusty dudes with gold grillz rapping about bitches and hos. They don’t see home” (83). But the protagonist knows what home is made up of: “sunshine and easy morning commutes,” “the laughter and embrace of our mothers and grandmothers and aunties, kin and not kin,” “bare brown arms reaching to hang clothes on the line with wooden pins,” “sun tea brewed all day in big jars on the picnic table in the backyard” (78). The protagonist and her partner find home in each other, but there is still a sense of nostalgia for what she knows so intimately in her hometown. Ultimately, she has to choose to create her own sense of home for the sake of her identity and her relationship.

The protagonist in “How to Make Love to a Physicist” finds home in her body. She is consistently told throughout her life that her body is her enemy, something to be contained and hidden and made smaller. This affects every part of her life, including her potential for relationships. She goes on a journey to get to know her body and make it a home for herself; she says, “as your body begins to feel like a home, your courage grows” (109).