Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! [Paperback]

Fried Green Tomatoes is in my top 5 movies of all time and after I watched it 4th time in probably a 15 year span it was just as good as ever. I got this book and (with the bonus of Welcome to the World, Baby Girl) because I wanted to clear up some things in Fried Green Tomatoes, the movie. The book was made more interesting having been familiar with the characters and it did give greater understanding to some of the characters such as Smoky Lonesome and Big George and had many more stories not in the movie. I like the movie was version better, but really enjoyed learning more of the characters. The second book was also good and written in much the wame manner (going back and forth in time). I would give an A+ to the first book and still a B to B+ to the second book. Both are an excellent read.

This is one of my all time FAVORITES! The characters just come alive, and this book holds your attention like none other. One can imagine being there with them
and wonder at the same time what YOU would have done. It is so real and it is funny, too.
I never wanted it to end. I love her style, the South, and the book's ability to
involve you. I watch the movie over and over, too. I never quit searching for Fannie Flagg's books. I want more!!

[Welcome to the World Baby Girl!]

Dena Nordstrom, an attractive network News Anchor battles substance abuse while desperately seeking to uncover the fate of her mother and wrestling with her own childhood abandonment by the same mother.

This would summarize the story for a TV guide, perhaps. It wouldn't however, do justice to the cast of southern characters, midwestern small townsfolk, or urban east coast jet-setters Ms. Nordstrom is accustomed to competing with. It might seem cliche to suggest that a city snob girl finds some humble country roots and some peace of mind in a simpler life style, but that's just what happens when Dena winds up in the home town of the Neighbor Dorthy Show.

Chronologically, this title occurs after Standing in the Rainbow (Ballantine Reader's Circle), but prior to and concurrently with Can't Wait to Get to Heaven: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) .

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[Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe]

A little more difficult to make a recommendation about Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. If you've seen the movie, you've been introduced to most of the characters. The book isn't the same story though. True, it's told through the lens of an elderly woman's memories of a small Alabama railroad junction. But, unlike the picture show, Virginia isn't confused with being Idggy. The other characters (and more of them), are vastly more developed than the film has time for, with Mrs. Flagg's eloquent humor and dramatic flair.

While the movie begins with a train wreck (a boy being run over by a locomotive), the book dives headlong into the intense psychological trauma (wreckage) this even permanently impresses upon the youngest member of his rather large family. (Idggy) Sometimes a book does a better job of getting inside the head of a character whose whole life is lived with a love that's damaged. If it's love though, damaged or not there's got to be a way to make the best of it.

The nursing home has also got it's cast of warped grotesques (not just Evelyn's mother-in-law) who make existence for a kind, friendly old lady a more lonely experience than it need be. Mrs. Flagg introduces us here to the origins which created the ancestors of protagonists who enliven stories in some of her later works (Norma & Mackey) which I've also enjoyed. Perhaps the future is all around us. It certainly feels like it when you visit a world in the flash-backs of someone else's memory.

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