Edward Swift
London: Penguin, 1981.

“Splendora: a steamy East Texas town where Sue Ella Lightfoot furthers her study of sexual motives with every issue of Real Crime magazine while Agnes Pullens drills young ladies in the finer arts of Dance and Expression and Zeda Earl Goodridge faces a life of ruin if her Christmas yard display doesn’t take first prize this year. Timothy John Coldrige left this town, unhappily, at the age of eighteen; now, at thirty-three, he returns with a dazzling companion, Miss Jessie Gatewood. Draped (an impeccable accessorized) in Victorian finery and drenched in social graces, she takes the town by storm.”