New Fannie Flagg Novel
Thu., July 13, 05:38 PM
Ooh, I’ve been patient. It’s almost four years since I read Fannie Flagg’s Standing in the Rainbow, and I’ve been wishing for another story about these people. Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven stand on its own perfectly well, but if you’ve read Rainbow, which is a sequel toWelcome to the World, Baby Girl!, you really want to get back to this Missouri community. You’ll recognize a lot of neighbors from the first two books (“poor Tot” seems to met her last catastrophe), but there are lots of new ones as well.
When Elner Shimfissle dies and goes to heaven, she just loves what she finds, most especially people she has missed for many years. I couldn’t help recalling heaven as depicted in The Lovely Bones. Elner is a very good-hearted lady who receives plenty of encouragement from her friends in heaven – but they send her back home. Naturally, no one believes her when she tells where she was, and she stops talking about it, but she doesn’t forget.
Back in her home, Elner continues to enjoy life to the fullest and help other people do the same whenever she can. We cynics never believe everything will fall into place and turn out well, but in Fannie Flagg’s novels, they do. Bless her! (Another book, out of the series, A Redbird Christmas, also ties up the loose ends very neatly).
Fannie just has to try to write more often. We’re getting on, and so is she. Wouldn’t it be awful to miss out on some good stories, just because she didn’t get them on paper?
I’ve got books on the brain, anyhow. Some of my friends are writing, and I always look forward to authors I know. Most personal of all, one of Husband’s childhood friends wrote a short memoir of the Home where they grew up; I proofread and formatted it, with U.D.’s help, and I actually have the book in hand. How exciting!
