Like a Wild Fast Run in Black Silk Stockings

About the Book

Like a Wild Fast Run in Black Silk Stockings is a novel based on the author’s award winning short story, “Lawd Child, Don’t Your Mama Dress You Cute.” Set in fictitious Dixie City, the story is crafted in dual first person point of view. Jodine herself talking, that crazy little piece of white trash with big whore eyes who can shoot a pistol straight as a boy. As a gun-toting, six-year-old cowgirl, she wants nothing more than to be famous like Marilyn Monroe, but like her PawPaw the deputy always says, “You oughtta be mighty careful what you wish for, Jodine. That Marilyn Monroe of yours is dead.” Miss Polly Poteat also speaks her piece. With big white teeth that make you squint and arms like Hershey hams, she sets you down ’til she’s good and finished. Miss Polly is the boss of the whole prison kitchen, the deputy’s mistress and the mother of his illegitimate daughter. Life is sweet biscuits and butter until Miss Polly confesses to murder: the shooting of a white man, an officer of the law. Among the town’s other colorful inhabitants are Magic Wanda, Dixie City’s own transvestite hairdresser and her big whore shoes, Robbie the butcher with his lingering scent of fresh meat and White Shoulders perfume, and Miss Candy Pants Clayton, Jodine’s school girl love. The story begins in the 1960s deep South. It lays the landscape of the southern heart without the benefit of white gloves and party manners, sculpts a love story full of paradox and perversity: Jodine’s love for her alcoholic mother whom she cannot change. Jodine’s love for fire – fire changes everything. Jodine’s love for Miss Polly, and finally, Jodine’s love for her sweet mister and his son, which leads Jodine to the final question: is love enough? In the explosive end, Miss Polly tells of Jodine’s laughter, “pure as church music,” and of her spirit, “...that Sunday morning sparkle across this ocean? If I squinch my eyes just right, it takes off shimmying like a diamond-dipped dancer into the sapphire sky.”

About the Author

A former native of the Carolinas, Cynthia Bell is an award-winning short story writer in addition to being a poet and painter. Presently, she lives in southeastern Pennsylvania with her husband Jim and their dog Bruiser.