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From the Hardcover edition.
Attending the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference in 1978 to see her idol, Eudora Welty, Flagg won first prize in the writing contest for a short story told from the perspective of a 11-year-old girl, spelling mistakes and all -- a literary device that she figured was ingenious because it disguised her own pitiful spelling, later determined to be an outgrowth of dyslexia. But when a Harper & Row editor approached her about expanding the story into a full-length novel, she realized the jig was up.
"I just burst into tears and said, 'I can't write a novel,'" she told The New York Times in 1994. "'I can't spell. I can't diagram a sentence.' He took my hand and said the most wonderful thing I've ever heard. He said, 'Oh, honey, what do you think editors are for?'"
And so Fannie Flagg -- television personality, Broadway star, film actress and six-time Miss Alabama contestant -- became a novelist, delving into the Southern-fried, small-town fiction of the sort populated by colorful characters with homespun, no-nonsense observations. Characters that are known to say things like, "That catfish was so big the photograph alone weighed 40 pounds."
Her first novel, an expanded take on that prize-winning short story, was Coming Attractions: A Wonderful Novel, the story of a spunky yet hapless girl growing up in the South, helping her alcoholic father run the local bijou. But it was with her second novel where it all came together. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café -- a novel, for all its light humor, that infuses its story with serious threads on racism, feminism, spousal abuse and hints at Sapphic love -- follows two pairs of women: a couple running a hometown café in the Depression-era South and an elderly nursing home resident in the late 1980s who strikes up an impromptu friendship with a middle-aged housewife unhappy with her life.
The result was not only a smash novel, but a hit movie as well, one that garnered Flagg an Academy Award nomination for adapting the screenplay. She won praise from the likes of Erma Bombeck, Harper Lee and idol Eudora Welty, and the Los Angeles Times critic compared it to The Last Picture Show. The The New York Times called it, simply, "a real novel and a good one."
Before her career as a novelist, Flagg was known principally for her on-screen television and film work. She was second banana to Allen Funt on the long-running Candid Camera, perhaps the trailblazer for the current crop of so-called reality television. (Her favorite segment, she told Entertainment Weekly in 1992, was driving a car through the wall of a drive-thru bank.) She appeared as the school nurse in the 1978 film version of Grease, and on Broadway in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And she was a staple of the Match Game television game shows in the '70s.
As a writer, though, this Birmingham, Alabama native found her voice as a chronicler of Southern Americana and life in its self-contained hamlets. "Fannie Flagg is the most shamelessly sentimental writer in America," The Christian Science Monitor wrote in a 1998 review of her third novel. "She's also the most entertaining. You'd have to be a stone to read Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! without laughing and crying. The cliches in this novel are deep-fat fried: not particularly nutritious, but entirely delicious."
The New York Times, also reviewing Baby Girl, took note of the spinning-yarns-on-the-front-porch quality to her work: "Even when she prattles -- and she prattles a great deal during this book -- you are always aware that a star is at work. She has that gift that certain people from the theater have, of never boring the audience. She keeps it simple, she keeps it bright, she keeps it moving right along -- and, most of all, she keeps it beloved."
But, lest she be pegged as simply a champion of the good ol’ days, it's worth noting that her writing can be something of a clarion call for social change. In Fried Green Tomatoes, Flagg comments not only on the racial divisions of the South but also on the minimization of women in both the 1930s and contemporary life. Just as Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison commit to a life together -- without menfolk -- in the Depression-era days of Whistle Stop, Alabama, middle-aged Evelyn Couch in modern-day Birmingham discovers the joys of working outside the home and defining her life outside meeting the every whim of her husband.
On top of her writing, Flagg has also stumped for the Equal Rights Amendment.
"I think it's time that women have to stand up and say we do not want to be seen in a demeaning manner," Flagg told a Premiere magazine reporter in an interview about the film adaptation of Fried Green Tomatoes.
She landed the Candid Camera gig while a writer at a New York comedy club. When one of the performers couldn't go on, Flagg acted as understudy, and the show's host, Allen Funt, was in the audience.
Flagg went undiagnosed for years as a dyslexic until a viewer casually mentioned it to her in a fan letter.
Elmwood Springs, Missouri.
Monday, April 1
9:28 am, 74 degrees and sunny
After Elner Shimfissle accidentally poked that wasps’ nest up in her fig tree, the last thing she remembered was thinking “Uh-oh.” Then, the next thing she knew, she was lying flat on her back in some hospital emergency room, wondering how in the world she had gotten there. There was no emergency room at the walk-in clinic at home, so she figured she had to be at least as far away as Kansas City. “Good Lord,” she thought. “Of all the crazy things to have happen this morning.” She had just wanted to pick a few figs and make a jar of fig preserves for that nice woman who had brought her a basket of tomatoes. And now here she was with some boy wearing a green shower cap and a green smock, looking down at her, all excited, talking a mile a minute to five other people running around the room, also in green shower caps, green smocks, and little green paper booties on their feet. Elner suddenly wondered why they weren’t wearing white anymore. When had they changed that rule? The last time she had been to a hospital was thirty-four years ago, when her niece, Norma, had given birth to Linda; they had all worn white then. Her next-door neighbor Ruby Robinson, a bona fide professional registered nurse, still wore white, with white shoes and stockings and her snappy little cap with the wing tips. Elner thought white looked more professional and doctorlike than the wrinkly, baggy green things these people had on, and it wasn’t even a pretty green to boot.
She had always loved a good neat uniform, but the last time her niece and her niece’s husband had taken her to the picture show, she had been disappointed to see that the movie ushers no longer wore uniforms. In fact, they didn’t even have ushers anymore; you had to find your own seat. “Oh well,” thought Elner, “they must have their reasons.”
Then she suddenly began to wonder if she had turned off her oven before she had gone out in the yard to pick figs; or if she had fed her cat, Sonny, his breakfast yet. She also wondered what that boy in the ugly green shower cap and those other people leaning over, busy poking at her, were saying. She could see their lips moving all right, but she had not put her hearing aid on this morning, and all she could hear was a faint beeping noise, so she decided to try to take a little nap and wait for her niece Norma to come get her. She needed to get back home to check on Sonny and her stove, but she was not particularly looking forward to seeing her niece, because she knew she was going to get fussed at, but good. Norma was a highly nervous sort of a person and, after Elner’s last fall, had told her time and time again, not to get up on that ladder and pick figs. Norma had made her promise to wait and let Macky, Norma’s husband, come over and do it for her; and now not only had Elner broken a promise, this trip to the emergency room was sure to cost her a pretty penny.
A few years ago, when her neighbor Tot Whooten had gotten that needle-nosed hound fish stuck in her leg and wound up in the emergency room, Tot said they had charged her a small fortune. On reflection, Elner now realized that she probably should have called Norma; she had thought about calling, but she hadn’t wanted to bother poor Macky for just a few figs. Besides, how could she know there was a wasps’ nest up in her tree? If it weren’t for them, she would have been up and down that ladder with her figs, making fig preserves by now, and Norma would have been none the wiser. It was the wasps’ fault; they had no business being up there in the first place. But at this point she knew that all the excuses in the world would not hold much water with Norma. “I’m in big trouble now,” she thought, before she drifted off. “I may have just lost ladder privileges for life.”
8:11 am
Earlier that morning Norma Warren, a still pretty brunette woman in her sixties, had been at home thumbing through her Linens for Less catalog, trying to decide whether or not to order the yellow tone-on- tone floral design chenille bedspread, or the cool seersucker 100-percent-cotton-with-plenty-of-pucker in sea foam green with ribbon stripes on a crisp white background, when her aunt’s neighbor, and Norma’s beautician, Tot Whooten, had called and informed her that her Aunt Elner had fallen off the ladder again. Norma had hung up the phone and immediately run to the kitchen sink and thrown cold water in her face to keep herself from fainting. She had a tendency to faint when she was upset. Then she quickly picked up the wall phone and dialed her husband Macky’s cell phone number at work.
Macky, who was the manager of the hardware department at The Home Depot out at the mall, glanced at the readout of the number calling and answered.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Aunt Elner’s fallen off the ladder again!” said Norma frantically. “You’d better get over there right now. God knows what she’s broken. She could be lying over in her yard, dead for all I know. I told you we should have taken that ladder away from her!”
Macky, who had been married to Norma for forty-three years and was used to her fits of hysteria, particularly where her Aunt Elner was concerned, said, “All right, Norma, just calm down, I’m sure she’s fine. She hasn’t killed herself yet, has she?”
“I told her not to get on that ladder again, but does she listen to me?”
Macky started walking toward the door, past plumbing supplies, and spoke to a man on the way out. “Hey, Jake, take over for me. I’ll be right back.”
Norma continued talking a mile a minute in his ear. “Macky, call me the minute you get there, and let me know, but if she’s dead, don’t even tell me, I can’t handle a tragedy right now. . . . Oh I could just kill her. I knew something like this was going to happen.”
“Norma, just hang up and try to relax, go sit in the living room, and I’ll call you in a few minutes.”
“This is it, I am taking that ladder away from her as of today. The very idea of an old woman like her . . .”
“Hang up, Norma.”
“She could have broken every bone in her body.”
“I’ll call you,” he said, and hung up.
Macky walked out to the back parking lot, got in his Ford SUV and headed over to Elner’s house. He had learned the hard way; whenever there was a problem with Aunt Elner, having Norma there only made matters worse, so he made Norma stay at home until he could get to Elner’s and size up the situation.
After Macky hung up, Norma ran into the living room like he had said to do, but she certainly could not calm down or even sit down until he called to tell her everything was all right. I swear to God, she thought, if she hasn’t killed herself this time, not only am I taking that ladder away from
1. When Aunt Elner falls out of her fig tree, she embarks upon a journey she never could have anticipated. Describe Elner’s surprising view of heaven. How does it compare with your own idea of the afterlife, or the conceptions held by various world cultures and religions? On a personal note, what do you hope is waiting for you on the other side of the pearly gates?
2. Elmwood Springs is a tightly knit community in which everyone seems to know his neighbor’s business. For the Warrens, what are some of the benefits of living in a small town? On the other hand, what are some of the drawbacks? How does your own hometown compare with Elmood Springs? Would you ever wish to move into Elner’s quirky neighborhood? Why or why not?
3. Describe Norma and Macky’s relationship, and how their marriage grows throughout the course of the novel. What bumps in the road have the Warrens endured? What keeps their marriage strong?
4. On her ascent to heaven, Elner climbs a crystal staircase; meanwhile, Ernest Koontz drives up to destiny in a brand new Cadillac convertible with heated seats. Consider your own wildest fantasy about heaven; how would you choose to arrive in style?
5. Norma and Tot’s long-standing friendship is challenged by Tot’s persistent negativity. Do you, like Aunt Elner, naturally embrace a positive outlook on life? Or, like Norma, do you strive, day by day, to “replace a negative thought with a positive”? Or, like Tot, do you prefer to “tell it like it is”? How does Norma choose to handle her differences with Tot? And how do the two friends manage to reconcile in the end?
6. For Elner, meeting her hero, Thomas Edison, is a dream come true. Which figures from history would top your own list of people you’d like to meet in heaven?
7. What message does Raymond impart to Elner about the meaning of life, and how does this view compare with your own beliefs?
8. If heaven allowed you to re-experience an episode, a place, or a time from your past, like Aunt Elner’s trip fifty years back in time to Neighbor Dorothy’s on First Avenue North, what scene or event would you choose to revisit, and why?
9. Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven is as much a mystery as a comedy. Do you think Elner truly died and went to heaven? What do members of Elner’s family believe? Next, just what is the truth behind the strange golf shoe? And what about Ida’s hidden family Bible? Finally, discuss the mystery of Elner’s loaded gun; were you surprised at the truth behind the mystery?
10. Reading Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven is like taking an antidote to the almost constant stream of bad news that surrounds us in our modern world. Tot voices something we all feel: “I always try to put on a happy face, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep up a good attitude…..Nostradamus, CNN, all the papers, according to them, we are on the brink of total annihilation at any second.” How did this novel make you feel about the state of the world today?
11. Elner touched the lives of many people in her community, from the ambitious journalist Cathy Calvert, to the troubled, misunderstood Luther Griggs, to the reformed lawyer Winston Sprague. How does Elner relate to so many different personalities? Describe Elner’s character and attitude toward people, problems, and life. Do you know anyone who shares Elner’s sensibility and talents for reaching out to others?
Anonymous
Posted July 5, 2008
I was very disappointed in this book. I was looking forward to reading it because I loved Fried Green Tomatoes. The entire time I was reading it, I was trying to find something redeeming (good writing, humor, insight, something I didn't know). Everything that happens is so predictable and trite. Here's a bit of wisdom from the book: 'She took the advice Elner had given her and was living everyday as if it might be her last.' Or how about 'when your dead, people go through all your things, so if you have anything you don't want found, you better get rid of it before you go!' Shame on you Fannie. You cashed in on the reputation of FGT. I feel like I wasted the $14.00 this book cost.
2 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 18, 2012
Not as good as previous books by Fannie Flagg novels I read.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I read this to my Dad in the hospital and the cute and quirky little heaven sightings really cheered him up and actually kind of rested his worried soul. What more could you ask for????
It also is a great gift for NURSES. People who almost die and live to talk about what they saw would love this book. There is a peaceful feeling I can't explain after reading this cute story.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.LoveToReadItAll
Posted June 16, 2013
I loved this book! There are so many dark novels with dark characters engaged in depraved activities lately, that a novel such at this one is like a breath of fresh air. I've passed this one around to many friends who have also enjoyed it. You will too, if you enjoy the occasional heartwarming story about good -hearted people.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 19, 2012
Great author!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 24, 2012
This was my first Fanny Flagg book, I loved it most fun just to kick back and read. IS IT IMPOSSIBLE WHO KNOWS
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.pdc1950
Posted October 3, 2011
I just started reading books by Fannie Flagg this year and am glad to say I found her.
Her writing is very expressive; the characters just jump out at you. Great page turner;
you don't want to put it down. Recommend reading this book for great enjoyment and
laughter to boot.
TamiJ16
Posted June 10, 2011
This is such a wonderful story.It's laugh out loud funny at times and makes you cry at other times.The characters are so real.,and have the best personalities you feel like you know them.I read this book and passed it on to all the women in my family.I hope,hope,hope that this becomes a movie someday.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 20, 2011
Typical Fanny Flagg with yet another page turner that made my heart smile....
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MotherEarthLY
Posted February 5, 2011
After seeing one bad news broadcast after the next, like Tot Whooten, it isn't hard to fall into a negative way of thinking that the world will soon come to an end. This book changes all that. The main character, Elner Shimfissle is an honest, believeable and innocent character but not one to be taken lightly. In times of trouble, she shows the needed fortitude that has helped her live 96 years but doesn't let trouble cloud her positive outlook on life. All of the characters in this book will remind us of people we all know but it isn't sappy, it isn't preachy and there is no sex in it because it doesn't need it. It is a book that stands out on the light hearted style of writing and keeps you wanting to read more. The epilogue winds up the book leaving you wanting to live in a town such as this, it even ends with recipes for dishes talked about in the book. This is one I want to keep on my shelf and read again.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I just love the way Ms Flagg writes. An overall enjoyable read. highly recommended!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Can't Wait to Get to Heaven is feel good Southern American fiction. It's about an elderly woman who falls off her ladder while picking figs and has an afterlife adventure while all her friends and family adjust to her sudden and unexpected death, and even more unexpected recovery. It's funny, sweet, and entertaining. A good read for people who want to reminisce about their own loved ones who've passed away, as well as people who just enjoy some good fluffy reading, with good moral and family values.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.AuntieMT
Posted February 20, 2010
I Also Recommend:
"Can't Wait to Get to Heaven" was the only Fannie Flagg book I had not read, and now I can happily say I've read all of them. It was so good to meet up with old friends from "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl" and "Standing in the Rainbow," but you don't have to read them before enjoying this book.
This was not about plot, but about how well Fannie writes about characters and especially those from the South. As a lifetime Northerner, I feel like I know these Southern folk a lot better after meeting them in her books. These seem to be the people of her childhood, and I treasure knowing them as well as I know the good folks with whom I grew up.
Delightful to read...couldn't put it down. And I sent a copy to a friend of mine who shares my joy in these characters and has sent me some of Fannie Flagg's books.
I don't question the theology of her view of heaven, just enjoy it!
QuilterJC
Posted August 25, 2009
Fannie Flagg has come through once again. Her small town southern characters keep me coming back for more. It makes me long for a slower paced, small town life. I enjoyed this book so much that I gave it to my husband and then my sister to read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Story included in condensed version of 4 novels<BR/>"Selection Editions" by Readers Digest
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The description of this book is so accurate. If you have ever had a Mrs. Elner Shimfissle in your family or circle of friends you can relate to this book and enjoy all the bizarre and amusing conversations she has in this book. Definitely a book to take to the beach or read on a weekend. You won't be able to put it down.
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Posted June 3, 2008
Fannie Flagg is an amazing author, her books captivate you like nothing else. I recommend this book and all of her others for those who enjoy good, wholesome, heartfelt works of art.
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Posted March 21, 2008
This book is beautiful... I highly recommend it for its vision and power to inspire you to live in the day. I needed something to help with that when I started reading it. I liked it so much and was so inspired that I decided to start a book club at a nearby assisted living facility. This will be the first book we read. It is a book that must be talked over, so I highly recommend it for book clubs. It is a fun, easy, light and wonderful read!
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Posted February 3, 2008
This is a very, very good book. It really had a warm and pleasant mood. The setting was in a close-knit southern neighborhood where everyone was like family. It was a really unique book it was a real gem. The book really made me think about what it would be like in heaven. I especially liked how God came in the form of Raymond and Dorothy, Eleanor's neighborhood friends. It showed that God is in everyone and we should not be afraid of Him. And I liked how God made it so you could get to heaven which ever way you wanted, whatever made you happy. However, one small thing I didn't like was how the plot seemed to sometimes go back and forth, and it became somewhat confusing. Other than that, I would highly recommend this book to anyone!
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Posted January 15, 2008
This book will amuse you, and give you a preview of the afterlife. I read it a year ago and it is still fresh in my mind. I gave it as gifts to about 10 people for Christmas last year. This is one you won't ever forget. Highly recommend.
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Overview
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 ...