Shereel Dupont wants to be at the top of the bodybuilding world. Formerly known as the secretary Dorothy Turnipseed, Shereel now trains rigorously at the behest of her boss-turned-personal-trainer Russell ('Muscle') Morgan to sculpt her body into taut muscles and bone. Her ascetic pursuit of physical glory leads her to the Blue Flamingo Hotel in Miami Beach, where Shereel is favoured to win the Ms. Cosmos bodybuilding championship - and all the endorsements and money that are sure to follow. But her foregone victory is endangered by the arrival of one family - her family, the Turnipseeds. The ragtag group's presence, in which they threaten and disturb bodybuilders and hotel workers alike, unsettles the chiseled competition and leaves Shereel at a crossroads. Is she really Shereel Dupont or Dorothy Turnipseed?
With his Southern Gothic storytelling, Crews identifies a complex and compelling portrait of discipline, obsession, power, and courage in the comic and absurd.