All American dream dolls

What's an attractive, successful, all-around-together girl to do when she's dumped at sixty-five miles per hour on the way to a romantic getaway? If you're Deneen Wilkerson, "college-educated, hardworking advertising phenom, friend of the earth, and owner of major appliances," you retreat to rethink - in Deneens' case, in the basement of her mother's house in St. Louis for a solitary orgy of talk shows and mental hygiene.

Deneen's crash and her wildly funny rebirth are chronicled in this beguiling new novel of relationships. When her younger sister becomes a serious contender in the All American Dream Dolls preteen beauty pageant, Deneen finds herself caught up in a universe of handsome promoters, bad Whitney Houston soundalikes, and wicked hot-oil treatments.

Deneen needs both her wit and her wisdom to decide what's real and what is fool's gold as she threads the maze of a contemporary wonderland of hype, seeking compassion not only for the women and men in her life but for herself.