In Person

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Carolina Garcia-Aguilera
May 27
Book People

South Florida has been a hot spot for tales of crime and misadventure ever since that group of deadly archers belonging to a tribe of Glades Indians brought an abrupt halt to Juan Ponce de Leon's beach party on the Gulf Coast in the 1500's. Mystery fans who love this sub-genre like alligators love to eat chickens will already be familiar with the South Florida superstars Charles Willeford, John D. MacDonald, Carl Hiaasen, Edna Buchanan, Vicki Hendrix, and James W. Hall, to name a few. Carolina Garcia-Aguilera must also be added to that wildly entertaining panoply. Her Cuban-American, Miami-based private detective Lupe Solano made her debut in last year's Bloody Waters, and has returned again in Bloody Shame (Putnam $22.95). Neither a Travis McGee nor a Hoke Moseley, Solano is nonetheless sassy, spicy, and thoroughly modern; at the end of a hard day of surveillance she yearns for a rum drink, a hot bubble bath, and a manicure. Garcia-Aguilera treats her readers to an authentic taste of modern Cuban-American family life, and her tales of crime and corruption in South Florida are authentically informed as well; Garcia-Aguilera ran a private detective agency in Florida for almost 10 years. Unlike Ponce De Leon, who was driven from Florida with a fatal arrow wound inflicted during that ill-fated beach romp, readers of these funny and refreshing books are sure to return for more. Garcia-Aguilera will be in Austin to read and sign her books at Book People at 7pm on Tuesday, May 27. - Jesse Sublett

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Rebecca Wells

The eve of Mother's Day was an entirely appropriate date for Louisiana-born author Rebecca Wells to read from her wickedly funny and poignant second novel, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Harper/Collins, $13.50 paper). The masterfully written novel, already well known to most of us who attended the Book People reding, is the story of a mother and daughter who have broken each other's hearts. The women behind me described how the book had made its way around their entire office, from desk to desk like wildfire. Another group were such fans they showed up dressed in full "Ya-Ya" regalia, complete with the book's signature "Rich Girl Red" nail polish. Suffice it to say, the woman was preaching to the choir.

The diminutive novelist/actress/playwright introduced her monologue and it struck me that, up close, her smile was almost too big for her face, her laugh a little loud, her gestures a shade too broad. But when she gathered herself atop the stool in her green satin dress and costume jewelry, grabbed the microphone. and began to read, I got it; Wells was born for the spotlight and she's a performer whose best acting material is her own work. We'd all read about Wells' irrepressible gang, the Ya-Yas, but what a treat to hear each of them speak: the droll, throaty voice of Caro; the sexy Cajun patois of Teensy; the sweet, good-girl practicality of Necie; and the giddy, high-strung intensity of Vivi Abbott Walker, around whom the novel revolves. We were enthralled while Wells read a vignette called The Ya-Yas in the Claire de Lune about a midnight skinny-dipping excursion in the tank of the elevated municipal water tower in fictional Thornton, Louisiana.

For the uninitiated, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is Wells' second novel about the intertwined families of Garnet Parish in the agricultural and geographical heart of Louisiana. Wells presents us with Siddalee Walker, a successful fortyish theatre director whose complicated relationship with her mother, Vivi Abbott Walker, has her stymied in mid-life, afraid to marry because she "doesn't know how to love." Hiding out in the Northwest, Sidda hopes to achieve some understanding of her mother by deciphering the "Divine Secrets" hidden in her mother's Ya-Ya scrapbook. Through the conceit of the scrapbook and the complicity of Vivi's Ya-Ya girlfriends, Wells uses flashbacks to skillfully present the reader with all the divinely hilarious and brutally damaging secrets that shaped Vivi Abbott Walker into the imperfect mother she was to Sidda. As the story unfolds, Wells doesn't make excuses but does provide rich, revealing context; she avoids denial but resiliently embraces forgiveness. The healing Sidda finally experiences comes with the realization that loving, however imperfectly, is worth a risk.

Perhaps this book is so resonant for me because Sidda and Vivi are of the same generation as my mother and me, and we broke each other's hearts more than once while she was alive. Just as likely, Divine Secrets appealed to me because I envy Sidda's opportunity to glimpse her mother's life in its own context. Whatever the reason, I heartily recommend it with this one caveat: If you read it at bedtime, you're liable to fall off the bed laughing with eyes full of tears. - Virginia B. Wood