Product Description

Fannie Flagg is back - together with the unforgettable residents of Elmwood Springs, Missouri - with another cocktail of humour and poignancy, wit and nostalgia, a fantastic feelgood novel that takes you right to the heart of American life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42755 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 495 pages

Synopsis
The time: 1946 - 2000. The place: Elmwood Springs, Missouri. Right in the middle of everywhere, which could be anywhere. World War II has ended and the joyous transitions to peace are being - mostly - embraced. Bobby Smith, ten, is the effervescent son of the well-known radio hostess Neighbour Dorothy, who broadcasts every day from her living room, via the power in her backyard, to an eager, and, at times, lonely audience. And, meet the Oatman Family Southern Gospel Singers at a pharmaceutical convention in Memphis, where they blow the place away; Hamm Sparks, a super-salesman everyone likes and trusts, who soon sells all of Missouri; and the phenomena known as the Sunset Club, Dinner on the Ground and the Funeral King.

About the Author
Fannie Flagg, TV, Film, and stage actress, writer, producer and performer is above all a bestselling author, whose books appeal to readers who love recognizable human characters, the saving graces of the much-maligned middle class and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. She lives in California and Alabama.

Excerpted from Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Almost everyone in town that had an extra room took in a boarder.
There were no apartment buildings or hotels as of yet. The
Howard Johnson was built a few years later but in the meantime bachelors
needed to be looked after and single women certainly had to have a
respectable place to live. Most people considered it their Christian duty
to take them in whether they needed the few extra dollars a week or not,
and some of the boarders stayed on for years. Mr. Pruiet, a bachelor from

Kentucky with long thin feet, boarded with the Haygoods so long that
they eventually forgot he was not family. Whenever they moved, he
moved. When he finally did die at seventy-eight, he was buried in the
Haygood family plot with a headstone that read:
MR. PRUIET
STILL WITH US
PAID IN FULL
The homes on First Avenue North were located within walking distance
of town and school and were where most of the town's boarders
lived.
At present the Smith family's boarder is Jimmy Head, the shortorder
cook at the Trolley Car Diner; the Robinsons next door have Beatrice
Woods, the Little Blind Songbird; the Whatleys up the street have
Miss Tuttle, the high school English teacher. Ernest Koonitz, the school's
band director and tuba soloist, boards with Miss Alma, who, as luck
would have it, has a hearing problem. But soon the Smith family will
take in a new boarder who will set in action a chain of events that should
eventually wind up in the pages of history books. Of course they won't
know it at the time, especially their ten-year-old son, Bobby. He is at the
moment downtown standing outside the barbershop with his friend
Monroe Newberry, staring at the revolving red and white stripes on the
electric barber's pole. The game is to stare at it until they are cross-eyed,
which seemed to them to be some sort of grand achievement. As far as
amusements go, it is on a par with holding your breath until you pass out
or dropping from a rope into the freezing swimming hole outside of
town named the Blue Devil, so cold that even on a hot day when you hit
the water the first shock jolts you to your eyeballs, stops your heart, and
makes you see stars before your eyes. By the time you come out your
body is so numb you can't feel where your legs are and your lips have
turned blue, hence the name. But boys, being the insane creatures they
are, cannot wait to come crawling out covered with goose bumps and do
it all over again.
These were some of the activities that thrilled Bobby to the core.
However, for Bobby just life itself was exciting. And really at that time
and that place what red-blooded American boy would not wake up every
morning jumping for joy and ready to go? He was living smack-dab in
the middle of the greatest country in the world—some said the greatest
country that ever was or ever would be. We had just beaten the Germans
and the Japanese in a fair fight. We had saved Europe and everyone liked
us that year, even the French. Our girls were the prettiest, our boys the
handsomest, our soldiers the bravest, and our flag the most beautiful.
That year it seemed like everyone in the world wanted to be an American.
People from all over the world were having a fit trying to come here.
And who could blame them? We had John Wayne, Betty Grable, Mickey
Mouse, Roy Rogers, Superman, Dagwood and Blondie, the Andrews
Sisters, and Captain Marvel. Buck Rogers and Red Ryder, BB guns,
the Hardy Boys, G-men, Miss America, cotton candy. Plus Charlie
McCarthy and Edgar Bergen, Amos 'n' Andy, Fibber McGee and Molly,
and anybody could grow up and become the president of the United
States.
Bobby even felt sorry for anyone who was not lucky enough to have
been born here. After all, we had invented everything in the world that
really mattered. Hot dogs, hamburgers, roller coasters, roller skates, icecream
cones, electricity, milk shakes, the jitterbug, baseball, football, basketball,
barbecue, cap pistols, hot-fudge sundaes, and banana splits. We
had Coca-Cola, chocolate-covered peanuts, jukeboxes, Oxydol, Ivory
Snow, oleomargarine, and the atomic bomb!
We were bigger, better, richer, and stronger than anybody but we still
played by the rules and were always good sports. We even reached out
and helped pick up and dust off Japan and Germany after we had beaten
them . . . and if that wasn't being a good sport, what was? Bobby's own
state of Missouri had given the world Mark Twain, Walt Disney, Ginger
Rogers, and the great St. Louis World's Fair, and aboard the battleship
Missouri the Japanese had surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur.
Not only that, Bobby's Cub Scout troop (Bobwhite Patrol) had personally
gone all over town collecting old rubber tires, scrap paper, and aluminum
pots and pans. That had helped win the war. And if that wasn't
enough to make a boy proud, the president of the entire United States,
Mr. Harry S. Truman, was a true-blue dyed-in-the-wool Missourian,
and St. Louis had won the World Series. Even the trees stood a little
straighter this year, or so it seemed to Bobby.

Customer Reviews

American As Apple Pie, As Familiar As Your Own Family
I've read most of Ms. Flagg's books, and I can say I enjoyed this one most of all. The characters are lovable and real; when I read about this character or that, I can see my own family member's faces. The story manages to cover so many decades and yet there's no feeling of being rushed through any of them. There were parts in which I laughed out loud, and moments when I sat with tears running down my face. It is as real as life gets, and it really does make you long for those simple, sweet days when America was the best place on earth to be - and for good reason. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what small town life in the States is all about. Bravo, Fannie Flagg!

A Brilliant Lovely Read
I love reading Fannie's novels. They are so warm and evocative, and perfect for curling up with in a comfy armchair to while away an afternoon.

'Standing In The Rainbow' takes us to Neighbour Dorothy's town, (she also appears in 'Welcome to the World, Baby Girl'), and I love the continuity and reading all about her family. Bobby made me laugh out loud, and Anna Lee and Hamm and Betty Ray. The characters are colourful and totally beleiveable.

I find that I can read her novels over and over, and are excellent to raise one's spirits!

Thumbs up and a big gold star!!

Standing in the Rainbow
If you have read 'Welcome to the World Baby Girl!' then you will recognise some of the characters in this book, mainly Neighbour Dorothy. If you like Flagg's work then you will find this novel another treat. She is still doing what she seems to do best: creating a world of eccentric snd funny characters. The novel covers a 7 decade timescale and there are insights into quite a few members of the Elmwood Springs community. Underneath the humour and quirky characters Flagg makes a social comment on American life.