The Speed Queen

Why did I kill them?



I didn't kill them. I was there, but I didn't kill anyone.



I know exactly what happened, though. It's pretty boring, actually. It's pretty normal. I don't think people will be that interested. But if anyone can make it interesting, you can. You'll make it funny, too, which is right. Sometimes it was really funny. Even now some of it's funny.



Marjorie Standiford sits on Oklahoma's death row, hours away from execution, speaking into a tape recorder, telling her life story. She's answering questions about how she became the Speed Queen, one of the Sonic Killers--how mainlining speed with her husband Lamont and her lover Natalie grew into dealing, how dealing grew into robbery, and robbery into mass murder. She's telling her story because she wants to set the record straight, to correct the lies in Natalie's book, which became a bestseller.



Marjorie's book will be better. It will be written by a bestselling novelist.



Told in Marjorie's dreamy, bemused, unforgettable voice, The Speed Queen is a startling new work from a writer whose novels have been called "masterful" by the Washington Post and "stunning" by The New York Times. Set against a uniquely American landscape of fast-food joints and endless highways, and scored by the blare of the dashboard radio, it is a taut, violent, darkly comic story sure to expand exponentially the readership and renown of this uncommonly gifted novelist."