The Saints and Sinners of Okay County

by Dayna Dunbar

Book Overview

In the tradition of Fannie Flagg and Lorna Landvik, The Saints and Sinners of Okay County is a heartfelt and compelling debut novel with an unforgettable heroine. It's the story of a woman whose ability to see the futures of others leads her right back into her own troubled past.

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345460405
• ISBN13: 9780345460400
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

If you like Billie Letts - you'll love Dayna Dunbar

Dunbar has written a wondeful story about coming into your own and finding stregnth that you didn't even know you had. This tale is one that I believe that we can all relate to - felling overwhelmed and learning to trust both ourselves and the wisdom of the universe in the gifts that it has given us. Her images stay with you long after you have put down the book.

Great storytelling, perfect pitch

This wonderful first novel by a gifted writer not only takes this reader back to the 1970s, but alsoto the nuances of landscape and life in small town Oklahoma, or probably anywhere in the US south and miswest. A subtly femiist text,its a great read for women and men.

Warmhearted, Uplifting, and Different

Aletta Honor is struggling to keep her family afloat with no money, three children, another one close on the way, and abandoned by her no-good, womanizing, alcoholic husband. Things could hardly be worse. A chance encounter convinces her to make use of the psychic gift she has had since childhood, but suppressed. Now she puts up a sign for psychic readings in her front yard, and the fun really begins.Jimmy her husband comes in and out of her life, drinking and blowing up unpredictably. Wonderful and terrible memories surface as the book moves easily between the present and Aletta's troubled childhood. The locals don't necessarily cotton to having a psychic reader in their small Bible-belt town. Aletta is painfully estranged from her embittered mother. Bible-thumping church-folk demonstrate on her front lawn. What next?Will Aletta get back together with Jimmy? Will she learn to make it on her own? Will she make peace with her own childhood? And, is this psychic gift for real? You will just have to read the book to find out. And, you should!Author Dayna Dunbar has a wonderful gift for bringing characters to life and making their inner worlds believable. She develops her story so skillfully, so empathetically, that you will even have a little sympathy for the villains. The book is extremely well-written, and it is also warm-hearted and uplifting. Once you pick it up, it's hard to put down. I recommend this one highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

beautiful southern fiction at its best!

Aletta is pregnant with three kids and a husband who ran off a few weeks before the novel begins. She puts a sign in her yard advertising psychic readings in order to make ends meet.Jimmy comes around again. Will Aletta take him in or make him go? The storytelling is superb in this book and beckons you closer to the small town life of Okay County.Don't miss out on this one! If you like books by Adriana Trigiani, then you're sure to love this book.

Fantastic, engaging picture of small town life!

Aletta Honor is a genuine psychic who has avoided her gift almost her entire life. Why she avoids her gift is a mystery that is unravelled throughout the story of her present day life as the mother of three with another on the way. Aletta is like many women in America, and in many other countries, in that she latches onto an attractive, charming man when she is very young and holds on for dear life no matter what the cost. Aletta makes the mistake of badgering her charming good for nothing boyfriend Jimmy into marrying her and then proceeds to have four children one right after the other. Aletta is a stay at home mom and she never stops to think that she and Jimmy cannot afford the childen and even though he is a good father - Jimmy never seems to want his children or show that much interest in them. Once she has Jimmy trapped, Aletta is alarmed to find him staying out after work later and later and coming home drunk. His drinking soon escalates to all out abuse and neglect of his family which is not suprising considering that he never, like many men, wanted the burden or responsibility of marriage and children. Aletta is forced to rely in her own instincts and finally grows up and matures and finds a way to use her psychic gifts to support herself and her children.Throughtout the dissolution of her marriage Aletta revisits her childhood, her discovery of her psychic powers and the events that lead up to the death of her father and uncle and her estrangement from her mother.This is a fascinating story of small town life, with some extraordinary characters thrown in for good measure. I enjoyed reading this book and found myself wishing it didn't have to end.