New Releases by Fannie Flagg

A sentimental look at small-town life featuring Dena Nordstrom, a New York TV show hostess. Sent by her doctor home to Missouri to nurse her ulcer, she hopes to learn why her mother abandoned her when she was 15 years old.

Combining southern warmth with unabashed emotion and side-splitting hilarity, Fannie Flagg takes readers back to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here? Life is the strangest thing. One minute, Mrs. Elner Shimfissle is up in her tree, picking figs, and the next thing she knows, she is off on an adventure she never dreamed of, running into people she never in a million years expected to meet. Meanwhile, back home, Elner’s nervous, high-strung niece Norma faints and winds up in bed with a cold rag on her head; Elner’s neighbor Verbena rushes immediately to the Bible; her truck driver friend, Luther Griggs, runs his eighteen-wheeler into a ditch–and the entire town is thrown for a loop and left wondering, “What is life all about, anyway?” Except for Tot Whooten, who owns Tot’s Tell It Like It Is Beauty Shop. Her main concern is that the end of the world might come before she can collect her social security. In this comedy-mystery, those near and dear to Elner discover something wonderful: Heaven is actually right here, right now, with people you love, neighbors you help, friendships you keep. Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven is proof once more that Fannie Flagg “was put on this earth to write” (Southern Living), spinning tales as sweet and refreshing as iced tea on a summer day, with a little extra kick thrown in.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFe is the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women-of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth-who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present-for Evelyn and for us-will never quite be the same.

Returning to Elmwood Springs, Mo., (where her sprawling 22 novel, Standing in the Rainbow, chronicled the small town''s inhabitants over five decades), Flagg keeps this outing much more tightly-focused; most of the novel takes place over a few days. Octogenarian Elner Shimfissle falls off a ladder after accidentally disturbing a hornets'' nest while picking figs. After she dies at the hospital, the novel''s bite-size chapters alternate between funny and touching vignettes showing how Elner''s death and life has affected dozens of people in town, interspersed with scenes of Elner''s laugh-out-loud assent into the hereafter. From there, the plot offers readers a series of delightful surprises. Perhaps Flagg''s funniest novel since her debut, Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, she''s created a charming, life-affirming tale and a full cast of memorable characters, including Elner''s late sister, Ida, who greets her in heaven still carrying her purse and a grudge about the bad hair styling she got for her funeral. Flagg is an expert at balancing pathos with plenty of Southern sass, and this could very well be the feel-good read of the summer. Library Journal.

Die 80jährige Elner Shimfissle hat viele Schicksalsschläge in ihrem Leben mit Bravour gemeistert und sich nie über ihr hartes Los beklagt. Daher begreift neimand in ihrer kleinen Heimatstadt Elmwood Springs, dass die alte Dame bei einem Fall von der Leiter gestorben sein soll - zu töricht scheint allen dieses Missgeschick. Auch Elner kann nicht verstehen, was mit ihr geschehen ist. Als sie im Krankenhaus die Augen aufschlägt, glaubt sie sich in einem nur allzu himmlischen Traum gefangen: Viele wundersame Dinge geschehen um sie herum, und wie gern würde sie verweilen! Aber ihre Zeit ist noch nicht gekommen. Elner muss zurück nach Elmwood Springs, um das Geschenk des Lebens noch einmal mit offenen Armen zu empfangen ...

After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it.

“A hilarious, endearing novel.”—Los Angeles Times In Fannie Flagg’s high-spirited first novel, we meet Daisy Fay Harper in the spring of 1952, where she’s “not doing much except sitting around waiting for the sixth grade.” When she leaves Shell Beach, Mississippi, in September 1959, she is packed up and ready for the Miss America Pageant, vowing “I won’t come back until I’m somebody.” But in our hearts she already is. Sassy and irreverent from the get-go, Daisy Fay takes us on a rollicking journey through her formative years on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There, at The End of the Road of the South, the family malt shop freezer holds unspeakable things, society maven Mrs. Dot hosts Junior Debutante meetings and shares inspired thoughts for the week (such as “sincerity is as valuable as radium”), and Daisy Fay’s Daddy hatches a quick-cash scheme that involves resurrecting his daughter from the dead in a carefully orchestrated miracle. Along the way, Daisy Fay does a lot of growing up, emerging as one of the most hilarious, appealing, and prized characters in modern fiction. Praise for Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man “Sheer unbeatable entertainment.”—Cosmopolitan “Unforgettable and irresistible.”—Chattanooga Free Press “Side-splittingly funny.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

A heartwarming new novel by the best-selling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe captures the humorous and complex realities of ordinary people living in Elmwood Springs, Missouri, including Neighbor Dorothy, a radio hostess, her son Bobby, the Oatman Family gospel singers, and hotshot salesman Hamm Sparks. Reprint.

Mrs. Threadgoode''s tale of two high-spirited women of the 1930s, Idgie and Ruth, helps Evelyn, a 1980s woman in a sad slump of middle age, to begin to rejuvenate her own life. By the author of Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! Reprint.

The journal of Daisy Fay Harper from 1952, when she is eleven years old, through the next six years and her crowning as Miss Mississippi.