Standing in the rainbow

Flagg, who made quite a splash with Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe(1987), knows how to deliver a gentle read like no one else. We first met many members of this cast in Welcome Back to the World, Baby Girl (1998), one of whom is Dorothy Smith, the host of the daily radio show Neighbor Dorothy. The story begins in 1945. The war is over, the American economy is booming, and there is no better place in the world than Elmwood Springs, Missouri. At least that's what Bobby Smith thinks. He is the 10-year-old son of Neighbor Dorothy, and he's got the world wrapped around his little finger. It's through Bobby's eyes that we first enjoy the simplicity of these lives and times; the characters are realistic, not melodramatic or cliched, eliciting a beautiful mix of compassion and envy. Take, for instance, Beatrice, the "Little Blind Songbird," who sings on Dorothy's show. She is blind, true, but her spirit longs to see the world. And then there's Betty Raye, of the gospel-singing Oatmans, who dreads each day's performance and the endless travel. Dorothy, ever the mediator, arranges a swap, and the entire world is better for it. Such touching moments border on syrupy, but Flagg's straightforward, unadorned prose keeps them sweet and pure and grounded in everyday life. If there's a flaw in the narrative, it's the 50-year span; too soon Bobby grows up, times change, and one pines for those days once again. --Mary Frances Wilkens

From the talented storyteller whose Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Caf became a beloved bestseller and a successful film comes a sprawling, feel-good novel with an old-fashioned beginning, middle and end. The predominant setting is tiny Elmwood Springs, Mo., and the protagonist is 10-year-old Bobby Smith, an earnest Cub Scout also capable of sneaking earthworms into his big sister's bed. His father is the town pharmacist and his mother is local radio personality Neighbor Dorothy (whom readers will recognize from Flagg's Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!). In 1946, Harry Truman presides over a victorious nation anticipating a happy and prosperous future. During the next several decades, the plot expands to include numerous beguiling characters who interact with the Smith family among them, the Oatman Family Southern Gospel Singers, led by matriarch Minnie, who survive misadventures galore to find fame after an appearance on the Arthur Godfrey show in 1949, the same year Bobby's self-esteem soars when he wins the annual town bubble gum contest. Also on hand are tractor salesman Ham Sparks, who becomes amazingly successful in politics, despite his marriage to overwhelmingly shy Betty Raye Oatman, and well-liked mortician Cecil Figgs, a sponsor of Neighbor Dorothy, who, as a bachelor in the mid-century South, also enjoys a secret life. The effects of changing social mores are handled deftly; historical events as they impact little Elmwood Springs are duly noted, and everything is infused with the good humor and joie de vivre that are Flagg's stock-in-trade. Agent, Wendy Weil at ICM. (Aug. 13) Forecast: Because Flagg doesn't patronize her characters, her novels beat out other feel-good fiction. Her broad appeal and Fried Green Tomatoes fame should make her latest a guaranteed bestseller. 9-city author tour. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Flagg brings her readers back to 1940s Elmwood, MO, when a family of white gospel singers bursts into town. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A daring, eccentric, and welcome observer of darkly human ways emerges from these 19 motley tales. Often writing in an ironical first-person voice, storywriter and novelist Emshwiller (Leaping Man Hill, 1999, etc.) assumes the persona of the outsider or renegade who flees the community as if to test boundaries and possibilities. In "After All," the narrator is a grandmother who decides to set out on a "makeshift journey" in her bathrobe and slippers simply because it is time. The setting is vague: she flaps through the town and then into the hills, pursued, she is sure, by her children, and, in the end, she is merely happy not "to miss all the funny things that might have happened later had the world lasted beyond me." Both in "Foster Mother" and "Creature," the mature, quirky narrators take on the care of an abandoned, otherworldly foundling and attempt to test their survival together in the wilds. In other stories, a character's affection for a scarred pariah forces her out of her home and through a stormy transformation-as in the sensationally creepy "Mrs. Jones." Of the two middle-aged spinster sisters, Cora and Janice, Janice is the fattish conspicuous one who decides to tame and civilize at her own peril the large batlike creature she finds wounded in the sisters' apple orchard. Janice does get her husband, and through skillful details and use of irony, the story becomes a chilling, tender portrait of the sisters' dependence and fragility. At her best, Emshwiller writes with a kind of sneaky precision by drawing in the reader with her sympathetic first person, then pulling out all recognizable indicators; elsewhere, as the long-winded "Venus Rising" (based on work by Elaine Morgan), the pieces read like way-far-out allegories. A startling, strong fourth collection by this author-look for her upcoming The Mount.

/*Starred Review*/ Flagg, who made quite a splash with Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987), knows how to deliver a gentle read like no one else. We first met many members of this cast in Welcome Back to the World, Baby Girl (1998), one of whom is Dorothy Smith, the host of the daily radio show Neighbor Dorothy. The story begins in 1945. The war is over, the American economy is booming, and there is no better place in the world than Elmwood Springs, Missouri. At least that's what Bobby Smith thinks. He is the 10-year-old son of Neighbor Dorothy, and he's got the world wrapped around his little finger. It's through Bobby's eyes that we first enjoy the simplicity of these lives and times; the characters are realistic, not melodramatic or cliched, eliciting a beautiful mix of compassion and envy. Take, for instance, Beatrice, the "Little Blind Songbird," who sings on Dorothy's show. She is blind, true, but her spirit longs to see the world. And then there's Betty Raye, of the gospel-singing Oatmans, who dreads each day's performance and the endless travel. Dorothy, ever the mediator, arranges a swap, and the entire world is better for it. Such touching moments border on syrupy, but Flagg's straightforward, unadorned prose keeps them sweet and pure and grounded in everyday life. If there's a flaw in the narrative, it's the 50-year span; too soon Bobby grows up, times change, and one pines for those days once again. ((Reviewed July 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

Flagg brings her readers back to 1940s Elmwood, MO, when a family of white gospel singers bursts into town. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

From the talented storyteller whose Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café became a beloved bestseller and a successful film comes a sprawling, feel-good novel with an old-fashioned beginning, middle and end. The predominant setting is tiny Elmwood Springs, Mo., and the protagonist is 10-year-old Bobby Smith, an earnest Cub Scout also capable of sneaking earthworms into his big sister's bed. His father is the town pharmacist and his mother is local radio personality Neighbor Dorothy (whom readers will recognize from Flagg's Welcome to the World, BabyGirl!). In 1946, Harry Truman presides over a victorious nation anticipating a happy and prosperous future. During the next several decades, the plot expands to include numerous beguiling characters who interact with the Smith family among them, the Oatman Family Southern Gospel Singers, led by matriarch Minnie, who survive misadventures galore to find fame after an appearance on the Arthur Godfrey show in 1949, the same year Bobby's self-esteem soars when he wins the annual town bubble gum contest. Also on hand are tractor salesman Ham Sparks, who becomes amazingly successful in politics, despite his marriage to overwhelmingly shy Betty Raye Oatman, and well-liked mortician Cecil Figgs, a sponsor of Neighbor Dorothy, who, as a bachelor in the mid-century South, also enjoys a secret life. The effects of changing social mores are handled deftly; historical events as they impact little Elmwood Springs are duly noted, and everything is infused with the good humor and joie de vivre that are Flagg's stock-in-trade. Agent, Wendy Weil at ICM. (Aug. 13) Forecast: Because Flagg doesn't patronize her characters, her novels beat out other feel-good fiction. Her broad appeal and Fried Green Tomatoes fame should make her latest a guaranteedbestseller. 9-city author tour. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.