SiddaLee Walker, at 39, is a creative theatrical director. She prides herself on having escaped her Louisiana hometown and her mother, Vivi Abbot Walker, a local beauty and performer who, in a recent "New York Times" article, is called a "tap-dancing child abuser." A fight over this article erupts between Sidda and Vivi, just when Sidda needs her mother's help with a play she's writing about women's friendships. Eventually, Vivi sends her daughter letters, photos, journals, and souvenirs form the Ya-Ya sisterhood. This group of girlfriends was wild and clever, and stuck in a small town where they were expected to raise babies, not Cain.