The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a collection of nine stories featuring black girls and women struggling with what it means to be good, bad, loved, feared, and everything in between. The stories span four generations of black women from the daughter of a woman having an affair with the married pastor of their church to a woman whose mother struggles with her daughter's sexual identity, and instructions for Christian husbands.
Equal parts steamy, chaste, honest and frustrated, the stories represent varied experiences of black women juggling family, work, romance, and everyday trials. Grandmothers raising multiple generations, adult daughters caring for aging parents, and snow removal provide common ground for characters and readers. It's not easy for church ladies living in a complicated, sexist, racist world.
Selected as a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction and recipient of The Story Prize, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Available in LINKcat and Wisconsin's Digital Library.