The Saints and Sinners of Okay County
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
"Beautifully written...a funny and poignant story of a woman struggling to liberate herself in small town America."
—FANNIE FLAGG, Author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
It's the summer of 1976, and it seems like the entire state of Oklahoma is celebrating America's bicentennial. But in the small town of Okay, Aletta Honor has much more on her mind than flags and fireworks. She's pregnant with her fourth child and hasn't seen her husband, Jimmy, in weeks. Although, she can guess where the hound dog has parked his red-white-and-blue van—in front of the local gin mill, or outside the home of yet another woman. Discretion is not in the man's constitution.
Flat broke and desperate for some cash, Aletta decides to set up a food stand on the front lawn during the Okay Czech Festival. But when a woman touches her hand in sympathy, Aletta is completely unsettled. She never touches anyone outside her family—if she does, she gets overwhelming visions of their lives and futures. Aletta immediately sees the woman in a tragic accident and gives her a warning that will save her life. When the woman returns the next day to thank her, Aletta figures out how to save her own life.
With all the courage she can muster—knowing most of the townsfolk will think she's nuts—she puts a sign in the front yard: ALETTA HONOR. PSYCHIC READER. DROP-INS WELCOME. But doing readings for people opens a door she thought she had locked long ago, as memories of a terrible event come flooding back. She may not be able to see into her future, but she realizes she must face the demons in her past if she's going to make a new life for herself and her kids. First, though, she'll have to tell a few fortunes…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thirty-something Aletta Honor, the protagonist of screenwriter Dunbar's quirky debut novel, is so pregnant she can't fit behind the wheel of her borrowed pick-up truck, and her husband, a drunk, cheating former high school basketball hero, Jimmy Honor, has left her and their three children. Stuck high and dry in Okay County on the Oklahoma plains in 1976 with a stack of bills piling up and no financial windfall on the horizon, Aletta resorts to peddling burnt, homemade kolaches (fruit-topped pastries) and powder-mix lemonade at the Okay Czech Festival parade. This fails, but when she inadvertently saves a woman's life through a psychic vision, Aletta reluctantly reconsiders using the gift of prescience that she first discovered at age eight to save her and her children from destitution. But her unwieldy supernatural powers often seems more of a curse, and she is never quite sure what someone's passing touch might reveal ("She didn't have any control over what came through. All she did was report it"). Her forecasts of future contentment or visions of painful past events unsettle Okay's upstanding citizens and earn her epithets like "Indian witch" and "psychic sorcerer." As Aletta embarks on her new career as a psychic reader, she's ostracized by Bible-thumping neighbors and forced to confront her mother's shame and an indirectly related family tragedy. Dunbar's no-frills writing style, engaging pacing and cast of kooky saints and sinners make Aletta's unconventional story about taking control of her life a pleasant, all-too-rapid read.