Elizabeth Stuckey-French's "The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady"

Elizabeth Stuckey-French is the author of a novel, Mermaids on the Moon, a collection of short stories, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa, and, with Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to the Narrative Craft.

Here's a synopsis of her new novel, The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady:

Seventy-seven year old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences. Marylou has been plotting her revenge for fifty years when she accidentally discovers his whereabouts in Florida and her plans finally snap into action. She high-tails it to hot and humid Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where a now senile Spriggs lives with his daughter’s family, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into their lives. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she is stumbling into. Before the novel is through, someone will be kidnapped, an unlikely couple will get engaged, someone will nearly die from eating a pineapple upside-down cake laced with anti-freeze, and that’s not all…

And to take this story from the page to the big screen:

Definitely Kathy Bates to play Marylou Ahearn, the so-called Radioactive Lady. I kept picturing her as I was writing it, especially her character in Misery. She was wonderfully innocuous looking, but brother, look out. A lot of anger underneath all that chipperness.

And I’d love for the Coen brothers to direct it. I’m absolutely in love with their movies, and I think their sensibility is similar to mine.

Learn more about the book and author at Elizabeth Stuckey-French's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Stuckey-French.

--Marshal Zeringue