Well just hold my pocketbook, I think I'm gonna shout. Loudly. About Jill Conner Browne, Boss Queen of the famously infamous Sweet Potato Queens, that group of eight lusty, bawdy, fun-infected boozy floozies, all named Tammy (to, of course, conceal their true identities), whom we first met in the Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love.

        Wellsir, she's back with God Save the Sweet Potato Queens — and it, too, is full of feisty stories about men, sex, alcohol and food.

ON THE WEB

Find out more about the Queens at www.sweetpotatoqueens.com

SIGNING

Jill Conner Browne signs God Save The Sweet Potato Queens 7 p.m. Friday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Madison and Edwards Roads, Norwood, 396-8960; and 7 p.m. Saturday at Books & Co., 350 E. Stroop Rd., Kettering (937) 298-6540.

        Fans will be happy to know the naughty ladies of Jackson, Miss., are no better behaved than they were in 1999. Worse, in fact, because now, as Ms. Browne explains, they have people all over the country egging them on, sharing stories of their own SPQ-like behavior.

        That behavior. My, oh my.

        Pounding the Fritos and Big Mama's Knock You Naked Margaritas. Compiling lists of “Men Who Should Be Maimed.” Coming up with interesting ways to handle men who are “Pestering You Slap To Death.”

        Oh, and a wonderful recipe for Death Chicken, a casserole you can take to the recently bereaved or whip up and serve an elderly husband with a lot of money, no heirs and a failing heart. There's that much bacon in it.

        “Figuratively speaking. We don't actually recommend it, though bacon is legal in all 50 states,” Ms. Browne says, midway into a tour that will take her to 18 cities through mid-February. “Life is too short and way too long to spend it laughless. We never outgrow our need to play. It has a tremendous power to heal and it restores to us what real life squashes out of you. Just like we never outgrow our need to dress up.”

        Believe her on that dress up bit. The Sweet Potato Queens make one official appearance a year: Jackson's St. Patrick's Day parade where they appear on a float (escorted by the Official Sweet Potato Queen Love Slave) in their official outfit: Hot pink majorette boots, size-24 green sequined bathing suits padded with 40 pounds of bosom and derriere, pink capes, flowing red wigs and way too much pink lipstick (Revlon's Love That Pink).

        Fetching, 'eh?

        “We are. We're everything you could imagine and hope for.”

        Apparently. The parade began in 1982: “We had about 15 spectators. Last year, we had more than 100,000.”

        Many of those, Ms. Browne says, are women who grouped in the wake of her first book: The Turnip Green Queens from southern Mississippi. Florida's Navel Orange Queens (motto: Keep Your Navel Queen). The No Regret Majorettes. The Menopause Mafia.

        “What amazes me is that I had e-mails from people in 22 states saying they were coming. Now, that someone in South Dakota would find this little book, read it and enjoy it, then take time off work, buy plane tickets and convince friends to do the same, well that tells me we've hit a universal chord.

        “And that it touches everyone. Men, women, black, white, gay, straight, teen-agers and 90-year-olds.”

        For one simple reason: It's laugh-out-loud funny. Irreverent as all get-out, waaay off the wall yet genteel as only a Southern Belle with a vicious streak can be.

        And a mighty easy read, too. Pick it up awhile, gasp, then laugh, put it down and start tomorrow almost anywhere. Just make sure you don't skip over the chapter on “Divorce, Dating Again, And Revirgination.”

        And yes, Ms. Browne says, there'll be another one soon. “And another and another. Kind of like Nancy Drew gone crazy at the lilac festival.

        “It all fits with my goal in life: Keep writing books and keep collecting funny stories so I can be the most popular person in the nursing home.”
       

SIGNING

            

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