The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year

Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs. In 1953, the good doctor gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent, and Marylou has been plotting her revenge ever since. When she discovers his whereabouts in Florida, she hightails it to Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where he resides with his daughter, Caroline, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into his life. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she’s stumbled into. Spriggs is senile, his daughter’s on the verge of collapse, and his grandchildren are a mess of oddballs, leaving Marylou wondering whether she’s really meant to ruin their lives … or fix them.

Elizabeth Stuckey-French is the author of the novel Mermaids on the Moon and the story collection The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa. Her short fiction has also appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Five Points, and other literary journals. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she teaches fiction writing at Florida State University.