The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

Rebecca Wells

Harper Collins

Otago Daily Times, September 5th 2009

In “The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder”, Rebecca Wells continues to explore territory familiar to readers of her other novels.

Calla Lily Ponder is born in the small Louisiana town of La Luna, where her parents run a dancing studio and her mother, M’Dear, has a beauty salon. As a young girl watching her mother work, Calla Lily realises that her mother does more than pamper her clients and that “washing and setting a person’s hair could sometimes change her world”. 

Devastated by her mother’s death from breast cancer, Calla Lilly decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps, moving to New Orleans to study cosmetology even though this means losing her first love.  Here she goes through various trials and triumphs, working towards her goal of reopening her mother’s salon as La Luna’s “Crowning Glory” and rediscovering happiness.

Unfortunately, Calla Lilly’s conviction that hairdressing is a healing art undermines (for me) her otherwise philosophical pronouncements on love, grief and friendship.  Similarly, descriptions of her grief at her husband’s death, although an accurate portrayal of loss, went through a few more moments of ‘letting go’ than my patience could sustain. 

I think I just took it too seriously, and to her credit Wells is a very sensual writer. I felt immersed in the sounds, smells, music and food of the Deep South. For readers with a less cynical bent, especially those who loved the Ya Ya Sisterhood and Wells’ other novels, I thoroughly recommend it.