The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

Starred review from December 13, 2010
Glowing with dark humor, Stuckey-French's fabulously quirky second novel (after Mermaids on the Moon) spotlights a wild would-be killer: Marylou Ahearn, a 77-year-old retired teacher in Memphis, Tenn. She's obsessed with killing Dr. Wilson Spriggs, who gave pregnant Marylou a radioactive cocktail in 1953 during a secret government study. Helen, the daughter Marylou gave birth to, died in 1963 from cancer. Accompanied by her Welsh corgi, Buster, and as "Nancy Archer" (the heroine of the 1958 movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman), Marylou moves in 2006 to Tallahassee, Fla., where Wilson lives with his daughter, menopausal Caroline; her husband, Vic Witherspoon, who's contemplating an affair, and their children: 18-year-old Elvis-obsessed beauty Ava; 16-year-old science geek Otis, who's secretly building a nuclear breeder reactor; and overachieving, attention-deprived 13-year-old Suzi. As "Radioactive Lady," Nance creates mucho mischief for Wilson, but her revenge plans mutate after discovering the old doc has Alzheimer's, and dang it, she really likes his kinfolk.

December 15, 2010

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Marylou Ahearn is serving up ice cream.

Some 50 years after being unknowingly exposed to radiation during a scientific study of pregnant women, she vows to finally kill the doctor in charge of the experiment—one Wilson Spriggs. Not only did the procedure leave her with lingering health issues, but she remains convinced that it contributed to the death of her daughter Helen, who passed from childhood cancer. Taking her alias, Nancy Archer, from the radioactive heroine of the camp classic film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, she heads down to Tallahassee, where Wilson now lives with his daughter and her family. Moving into their neighborhood, she befriends Wilson's 13-year-old granddaughter Suzi, and discovers, to her chagrin, that he is suffering from early dementia symptoms and is unlikely to even remember the experiment. Biding her time and deciding whether or not to kill the old man, Marylou plans to secretly torment his family, not understanding that they are already doing that to themselves. Mom Caroline feels stifled in her marriage to Vic, and dreams of moving to Memphis with her eldest daughter Ava. Ava, an awkward beauty, is obsessed with Elvis Presley and dreams of becoming a model. The oldest son, Otis, who struggles, like Ava, with Asperger's Syndrome, is secretly trying to build a breeder reactor in a backyard shed, using information he gleans from his grandpa. And weary patriarch Vic is sexually tempted by an old friend, Gigi, who works for him. Marylou insinuates herself into all their lives, taking Suzi to a megachurch and Ava to a photo shoot, where a sleazy photog snaps nudes of her. Several family disasters ensue, and Marylou ends up kidnapping Wilson, who may recollect more than he lets on.  

A dark, humorous portrait of a dysfunctional modern family. With its interesting premise and diverse, flawed characters, Stuckey-French's (Mermaids on the Moon, 2002, etc.) black comedy could have been even stronger. A tighter plot and a more developed heroine would have helped.

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Starred review from February 1, 2011

Revenge is a dish best served cold--and after 50 years, Marylou Ahearn's dish is just about properly chilled. Once the unwitting subject of an experiment in radioactivity, brokenhearted and bitter Marylou sets out to avenge the dire consequences of that same study. Her target? Dr. Wilson Spriggs, the man who engineered and oversaw the experiment that eventually ruined Marylou's life. Dr. Spriggs now lives in a cheerful, innocuous Florida suburb with his daughter and her family and has what appears to be an idyllic life. With vengeance in her heart, Marylou adopts a fake persona and moves in on the doctor's life, offering friendship, with an actual intent to kill. But she soon discovers that the lives of Dr. Spriggs and his family are far from perfect, and, what's more, she rather likes them, in all their dysfunctional glory, making her task difficult to carry out. VERDICT Mixing the suburban angst of Tom Perrotta (The Abstinence Teacher) with the snarky humor of Carl Hiaasen (Stormy Weather), Stuckey-French (Mermaids on the Moon) has written a page-turner that is thoughtful, amusing, and nearly impossible to put down. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/10.]--Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2011
If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Marylou Ahearns feelings for Dr. Wilson Spriggs should, after 50 years, be just about frozen. But at age 77, Marylou realizes shes running out of time if she wants to make Spriggs pay for his role in a 1950s covert government medical-research project that gave unsuspecting pregnant women like herself a radioactive cocktail that resulted in the premature cancer death of her eight-year-old daughter. Discovering that Spriggs now lives in Florida with his daughter and teenage grandchildren, Marylou abandons her Memphis home, moves to Spriggs neighborhood, and adopts the persona of Nancy Archer, best known to B-movie fans everywhere as the infamous 50-Foot Woman. Marylou/Nancys mission is to kill Spriggs, but the reality is that shes just a nice little old lady, not an overly large woman with super powers. Instead, she decides to wreak havoc upon the lives of Spriggs family, to hilarious, and often sobering, ends in this broadly comic, yet essentially heartfelt, absurdist satire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)