The Bingo Queens of Paradise Hardcover - 1999

From the publisher

In Oklahoma, where Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is a staple and Bob Barker is king, twenty-eight-year-old Darla Moon struggles to break free and pursue her dreams. A talented seamstress and designer, she is cursed with a semiretired hooker for a mother, a hypochondriac for a sister, a no-good loafer for a brother-in-law, a frog-collecting grandma, and Momma's British lesbian friends, Muff and Freda Bottrell--Clairvoyants and Tea Leaf Readers Extraordinaire. To make matters worse, Darla lives in Paradise, a drought-ridden bend in the road that's spitting distance from Lamb of God Pentecostal Church and Big Bucks Bingo--a world away from where she wants to be, New York City. But Darla is blessed with the devotion of Elijah True, an elderly black man who nurtured her through childhood; the friendship of Brandy, the town's lonely beautician; and the unexpected love of the Reverend Spirit E. Jackson, a transplanted Australian who drives into town in an old white Cadillac and sweeps her off her feet.

Sadly, as Darla formulates her plan to escape Paradise, turmoil erupts. Family once more stands between her and her suitcase. Momma runs off with a long-distance trucker, Darla's sister is hospitalized with cancer, her sister's two children are sick with worry, and brother-in-law Frank is thrown in jail--charged with impregnating a neighbor's sixteen-year-old daughter. Left unsupervised, Granny gets into trouble of her own, and Pearl, Darla's fourteen-year-old niece, can't cope with her world. Torn between her love for Spirit, her love for Elijah and young Jesse, her keen sense of duty, and the pursuit of a dream, Darla must, for the first time in her life, cast an unflinching eye on all the hard-to-accept truths regarding love, responsibility, and survival.

The Bingo Queens of Paradise is a tour-de-force first novel that lyrically blends a powerful comic voice with a poignant tale of a woman who longs to escape her life and follow her dreams.