Book Club Guide

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

by Deesha Philyaw · 2020 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The Black church and what it gives women — and what it takes
Desire and the shame it carries in a community where shame is power
The daughter and mother and the gap between their worlds

About this book

Nine stories about Black women and the Black church — their desires, their hypocrisies, their grace, their hidden lives. Philyaw's PEN/Faulkner Award-winning debut is a formally accomplished, deeply felt collection about what the church gives Black women and what it withholds from them.

Published in 2020, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Story Prize. Philyaw grew up attending Black churches in the American South.

Discussion questions

The church is both a site of community and a site of constraint in these stories. How does Philyaw develop this double relationship — and does she ask the reader to condemn the church?
Several stories involve women whose desires have been suppressed or hidden. How does Philyaw render the tension between desire and duty — and what does she say about what is lost?
The stories are formally varied — some flash fiction, some much longer. How does Philyaw match form to subject — and which stories do you find most formally successful?
The collection is deeply rooted in African American religious culture. What does it offer readers outside this tradition — and what remains specific to it?
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies won the PEN/Faulkner Award. What does it do that earns this recognition — and what does fiction give these women's lives that other forms cannot?