"My Neighbors, Goodlife, Mississippi" is a collection of eleven stories written by Mary "Myra" Boone, a recurring character in Eileen Saint Lauren's work. Her characters speak guiding truth as did Flannery O'Connor oftentimes, with the purest of voices. Magical realism, the supernatural, sophisticated suspense, and the sublime pervading the stories ranges from conjuring of spirits, catbirds and honey breezes, sudden angelic appearances, occurrences of light to interludes of non-consuming fire, nature with blue roses, jeweled forest walls, a blind woman amid the stars, the Devil's wife, the City of Heaven, the hand of God, and the lost Ark of the Covenant. Each of the stories portrays a grotesque character or a horrific and bizarre act of revenge in the name of God and twisted love. Much of the intrigue concerns the victims, both black and white, of the oppressive and often inhumane social climate of the fifties and early sixties of Goodlife, Mississippi. Knowingly and unknowingly, they seek retribution to exact some kind of justice for a severe injustice perpetrated upon them. In relating the stories of her characters, Saint Lauren reveals the many contradictions in the pervasive Pentecostal religion of the era and locale, and she offers glimpses into the aloofness of the elite White culture. The sermonizing, the fervor, the Holy Ghost fire, the at-ease elite are often empty and mocking in the face of the dire life circumstances of the characters portrayed. The stories are too close to the truth of the era to be comfortable.Saint Lauren often takes the reader to a supernatural place that provokes the questions: Is this life or death? Is this Heaven or Hell? Whatever the reader deems true will suffice because ironically Goodlife, Mississippi, is a mixture of both.Saint Lauren's themes, even, are subtly reinforced in brief but profound axioms such as the statement of Ambrose Twain, a wise, guiding ethereal spirit to Myra who says, "Without love, all becomes hell-even eternity." And perhaps that is the overarching theme that unites all of her work. A study guide is included.