My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi Stories
Eileen Saint Lauren's "My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi" is a collection of eleven stories written by Mary "Myra" Boone, a recurring character in Saint Lauren's work. Saint Lauren has her characters speak guiding truth with the purest of voices by way of magical realism, the supernatural, sophisticated suspense, and the sublime. Each of the stories portrays a grotesque character or a horrific and bizarre act of revenge in the name of God and twisted love. Such repulsive events and grotesque people are the tours de force found in "My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi." Much of the intrigue concern the victims, both Black and White, of the oppressive and often inhumane social climate of the fifties and early sixties of Goodlife, Mississippi. Knowingly and unknowingly, they seek retribution to exact some kind of justice for a severe injustice perpetrated upon them.
The stories in "My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi" are too close to the truth of the era to be comfortable and seen through the eyes of Myra Boone, they become life-shaping events.
Eileen Saint Lauren often takes the reader to a supernatural place--holy and unholy--that provokes the questions: Is this Heaven or Hell? Whatever the reader deems true will suffice because ironically "My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi" is a mixture of both. Saint Lauren's themes, even, are delicately reinforced in brief but profound originality such as the statement of Ambrose Twain, a wise, guiding ethereal spirit to Myra who says, "Without love, all becomes hell-even eternity." And perhaps that is the overarching theme that unites all of her work.
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