Playwright Siddalee Walker is on the verge of opening a new play. She gives a magazine interview in which she discusses her unhappy childhood. Her mother is furious and cuts her off. Her mother's friends, who as children formed a secret society, the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, kidnap Siddalee from her New York apartment and take her home to Louisiana. The Sisterhood hopes to explain her mother's history and to patch up the rift between mother and daughter.