 Playwright Siddalee Walker, on the verge of opening a new play, gives a magazine interview in which she discusses her unhappy childhood. Her mother is furious and cuts her off. Her mother s friends, who formed a secret society, the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, as children, kidnap Siddalee from her New York apartment and take her home to Louisiana, where they explain why her mother mistreated her with help from the secret Ya-Ya scrapbook (and copious flashbacks).