Reading Road Trip...Alabama

Robert McCammon's Boy's Life and Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe are both set in Alabama and they couldn't be more different. McCammon's book (a Bram Stoker award winning fantasy/horor) is set in Zephyr, Alabama in 1964 and it opens with a chilling scene as a car plunges into a lake some say are bottomless. A milkman who witnesses the accident while makings his rounds with his son, dives down to see if he can rescue the driver and discovers...this was no accident. Flagg's book, the basis for the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, is set in the fictional town of Whistle Stop, Alabama and tells the story of a friendship between two women and plays out against various timelines. I highly recommend both books.

And then there's This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijcamp. Set in Opportunity, Alabama, it's the story of a school shooting told through multiple points of view. I have a fondness for that kind of storytelling (Ryan Gattis' All Involved is probably my favorite) and the writer does a fantastic job here. The book is tagged as YA but it is in the vein of Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give than John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.

the shooter in Nijcamp's book, Tyler Browne, is an outcast whose rage is fueled by the mantra, "I will make sure you remember me." In some ways it will remind readers of Todd Strasser's Give a Boy a Gun, a novel based on the 1999 Columbine school shooting.

Southern-fried fiction

I'm a fan of quirky stories about small Southern towns. I love Clyde Edgerton's work (particularly Floatplane Notebooks) and Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart. One of my all-time favorite novels is Michael Malone's Handling Sin and another is Rita Mae Brown's Bingo (which I am dying to turn into a movie.)

I'm also a long-time fan of Fannie Flagg, whose book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was made into the movie with the abbreviated title Fried Green Tomatoes. (And how much did I love Kathy Bates in that movie?) She's got a new book out, The Whole Town is Talking.

Here's the sales pitch:

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it’s called, is anything but still. Original, profound, The Whole Town’s Talking, a novel in the tradition of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Flagg’s own Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, tells the story of Lordor Nordstrom, his Swedish mail-order bride, Katrina, and their neighbors and descendants as they live, love, die, and carry on in mysterious and surprising ways.

Lordor Nordstrom created, in his wisdom, not only a lively town and a prosperous legacy for himself but also a beautiful final resting place for his family, friends, and neighbors yet to come. “Resting place” turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, however. Odd things begin to happen, and it starts the whole town talking.

With her wild imagination, great storytelling, and deep understanding of folly and the human heart, the beloved Fannie Flagg tells an unforgettable story of life, afterlife, and the remarkable goings-on of ordinary people. In The Whole Town’s Talking, she reminds us that community is vital, life is a gift, and love never dies.