Fried, Green, Loaned

'As eighty-year old Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode tells Evelyn Couch about her life, she escapes the Rose Terrace Nursing Home and returns in her mind to Whistle Stop, Alabama, in the thirties, where the Whistle Stop Cafe provides good barbecue, good coffee, love and even an occasional murder. '

As far as blurbs go, this one wasn't really the most enticing. I'd happened to pick it up from compulsion & curiosity from where it had been resting on top of the microwave in the Argyle Street kitchen. Hazel noticed my movement however and with it being one of her favourite books, hastened to let me borrow it.
It accompanied me to France & back (unread) & then once home, was added to the stockpile of 'Other Reads To Follow'.
It was only as the house began to break up a few months later & its occupants move on that I began to slightly outstay the welcome of the loan.
So it travelled back down to Cambridge with me in the intention of reading, completing & returning before I crossed over to Reading for my second helping of the South that weekend.

 I had the liberty of a full 9-5 day to myself in the leafy city and so where I chose to sit & finish the novel became important to me.
A sort of integral part with specific choices of space befitting the task of completion; what with it being both Hazel's novel & her adoptive city. .
 And so I began, lying on a bench on the gorgeously autumnal Jesus Green; quickly oblivious to those walking past due to increasing involvement in Ruth & Idgie's deepening friendship.
After lunch, I wandered sculpturewards before winding up on Castle Hill to read there for an hour or so 'til it got too cold. Then I found myself at Henry's on Quayside and an incredibly secluded, cosy corner which I nestled myself into and read on.


I loved the storytelling quality Flagg uses, which really demonstrates her care for every character. Even the 'bad guys' of the tale have their own redeeming qualities and Achilles heel a-piece.

Those memories were still there, and tonight, he sat searching for them, just like always, grabbing at moonbeams. Every once in a while he would catch one and take a ride, and it was like magic.

Smokey's words (above) as he reflects back over his life can also reflect on Flagg's technique as she brings in a new character, a new period and shares with the reader a bit of from the portion of that character's life and consequently, how that connection also feeds into the life of the community in Whistle Stop.

FGT reminded of me at times of Erdrich's Love Medicine, especially due to the narrative style encompassing a whole generation of family and neighbourhood, within that close-knit community.
Also through the way that new development in the 'outside world' would impact and irreversibly alter life within that community: the rail-road business affecting business at the cafe by the novel's end.

To name but a few:

- I liked the handling of Ruth and Idgie's relationship, the understated nature of how their summer friendship deepened into a relationship based on love and companionship. The page torn from the book of Ruth carrying a whole lot of weight and prompting the rescue to occur. 

- I also liked how Flagg mirrored this shift in friendship by the increasing closeness between the two women, Evelyn Couch and Mrs. Threadgoode.
Threadgoode changing in Evelyn's eyes and the narrative of life in Whistlestop taking hold of Evelyn's imagination and causing her to change her unhappy, unfulfilled home-life for one which benefits and puts her first.

- I also appreciated how Flagg identified the passions of individual characters: the love of life in the Big City, the love of the railroad and its freedoms, the love of the wild outdoors and the escapism that allows _ I found this aided the characterisation in bringing the people to life. 

___________

Plot: ****
Lovely: interweaving stories, community, history - smoothly done despite jumping back & forth across time.

Fun: ****
A lot of fun & a lot of humour: Dot Wean's Weekly bulletin, the alter-ego of Evelyn in 'Towando', Evelyn's participation in an all-Black church service (powerful and funny)... I could easily go on here.

Novelty: ***
Flagg has a definite style & it's pulled off successfully here.

Overall: ****
I'll be sure to revisit this one again, with my own copy in hand. 

Flagg, Fannie. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1993