Snake Oil Fantasies

Laura Wakely, white single mother of a biracial Black daughter, relies on doctor and longtime acquaintance Ophelia Lum to treat her chronic illness. Only, Ophelia is not a doctor — she’s an unemployed 30-year-old who lives with her Chinese-American parents and supplements their grocery store income selling quack remedies.

When the two women’s relationship ventures into territory more than transactional, questions about racial and sexual identity trickle to the fore, and the ruse that enabled their connection is placed in jeopardy. Set at the cusp of the opioid crisis, Snake Oil Fantasies is a portrait of the complicated relationships among the Chinese-American, African-American, and white communities of the Mississippi Delta.