The Saints and Sinners of Okay County
Dayna Dunbar
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345460391

In 1976 a clairvoyant woman has more on her mind the America's bicentennial, she's pregnant & hasn't seen her husband in weeks.

The Saints and Sinners of Okay County is a lively & compelling debut novel with an unforgettable heroine, whose ability to see the futures of others leads her right back into her own troubled past.

With the whole state of Oklahoma wildly celebrating America's birthday in a never-endingly hot summer, Aletta waddles around in her rented house right on Main Street where the Fourth of July parade is passing her by, her three children are who-knows-where, & she's broke & alone.

While selling lemonade during Okay's Czech Festival, an out-of-town woman offers her sympathy for her condition & touches her hand. Aletta clearly sees the woman in a traffic accident, & gives her a warning. When the woman returns the next day to thank her, Aletta finally figures out how to save her own life.

Aletta has avoided touching strangers since she was a little girl when she would “see” vivid & frightening portents in their lives. Determined to be ordinary, she'd shut such stuff down, even as her Grandma begged her to follow her “gift”.

Married now to the wayward Jimmy, she doesn't have to guess where his red-white-&-blue van is parked -- in front of the local gin mill, or outside another woman's home for a little Yankee Doodle Diddle. Discretion not being in the man's constitution.

With all the courage she can muster, heedless of whether her neighbors will think her nuts, she puts a sign in the front yard: ALETTA HONOR. PSYCHIC READER. DROP-INS WELCOME. While doing the readings, memories flood back of things she thought she'd locked up tight so long ago. Though she may not be able to see into her own future, she soon realizes she must face her demons, if she is ever to make a new life for herself & her kids.

The Saints and Sinners of Okay County is both funny & poignant, brash & courageous, steeped in the earthy wisdom of America's rural heartland.

A satisfying, if a tad strident, womanly read!
(04/04/04)

Rebecca