The Beauties of Belladonna

Pulling up to the gated community known as Belladonna-nestled comfortably in the foothills of South Carolina-one is confronted by a logo featuring a wide-eyed Cleopatra surrounded by the legendary poisonous plant. It's the sort of place that has a hammerlock on the American Dream, featuring a championship golf course, prizewinning lawns, Tuscan architecture, compulsory three-car garages, faux cobblestone sidewalks, and an Assisted Living Center.Belladonna's inhabitants are a colorful lot, including a retired lawyer whose life is centered on his lawn; the Undefeated Speed Dating Champion of the World, who meets and marries a mother recovering from a traumatic event; a buxom college professor whose courses include "Elementary Outrage" and "Feminism with a Human Face"; a harried real estate agent who quotes Shakespeare and Wordsworth to his clients; and a former potato chip salesman whose brilliant, irreverent wife develops dementia.In the spirit of Belladonna's logo, Gilbert Allen's series of linked stories from the New South are both seductive and, well, hazardous. Blending biting satire, rueful affection, and unblinkered curiosity about the strangeness of the human heart, these are tales that reveal truths about our upscale neighbors-and ourselves.Although you won't find Belladonna on any map, you might have already encountered its past, present, and future in Gilbert Allen's previous collections, The Final Days of Great American Shopping and The Beasts of Belladonna.