Getting Mother's Body: A Novel

Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no count -- and six years dead -- Willa Mae, comes home one day and finds a letter waiting for her: Willa Mae's burial spot in LaJunta, Arizona is about to be plowed up to make way for a supermarket.

As Willa Mae's only daughter, Billy is heiress to her mother's substantial, but unconfirmed, fortune -- a cache of jewels that her mother's lover, Dill Smiles, is said to have buried with her. Dirt poor, living in a trailer with her Aunt June and Uncle Roosevelt behind a gas station in a tumbleweedy Texas town, and pregnant with a fatherless child, Billy sees hope and opportunity in the buried treasure. So she steals Dill's pickup truck and, with her Aunt and Uncle in tow, heads out for Arizona with Dill in hot pursuit. While everyone agrees it's only polite to speak of getting mother's body and moving her to a proper resting place -- it's well understood that digging up Willa Mae's diamonds and pearls will make the whole trip a little more worth while.

About the Author
Suzan-Lori Parks is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "Topdog/Underdog." She is a playwright and screenwriter whose other plays include "Fucking A," "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World," "The Sinners Place," "Devotees in the Garden of Love," Betting on the Dust Commander," Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom" (1990 Obie Award for Best New American Play), "The America Play," "Venus" (1996 Obie Award), and "In the Blood." Her first feature film was "Girl 6," directed by Spike Lee. She is currently working on an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel PARADISE. She has been a playwriting professor at universities around the country including The Yale School of Drama and she currently runs the Dramatic Writing Program at Cal Arts. She lives in Santa Monica, California.