Product Description

Like A Wonderful Life for our times - unashamedly emotional, full of warmth and quite literally out of this world...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33168 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

She Magazine
`once more proves that Flagg "was put on this earth to write"'

Synopsis
Life is the strangest thing. One minute, Mrs Elner Shimfissle is up a tree, picking figs to make jam, and the next thing she knows, she is off on a strange adventure, running into people she never expected to see again, in the unlikeliest of places. Meanwhile, Elner's highly strung niece Norma takes to her bed, before embarking on a brand new career; Elner's neighbour Verbena turns to the Bible; her truck-driver friend, Luther Griggs, runs his eighteen-wheeler into a ditch; a dark secret emerges from the past - and the entire town is left wondering, 'What's life all about anyway?' Except for Tot Whooten, whose main concern is that the end of the world might come before she can collect her social security. A plea for honest doubt and humanity in an over-certain world, "Can't Wait to Get to Heaven" is further proof that Fannie Flagg was put on this earth to write.

About the Author
Fannie Flagg began writing and producing television specials at the age of nineteen and went on to distinguish herself as an actress and writer in television, films, and the theater. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (which was produced by Universal Pictures as Fried Green Tomatoes), Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Standing in the Rainbow, and A Redbird Christmas. Flagg's script for Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated for both the Academy and Writers Guild of America awards and won the highly regarded Scripters Award. She lives in California and in Alabama.

Customer Reviews

feel good book with heavenly recipes too!
Like other readers I found this book quite hard to get into. I put it down after the first few chapters and left it on my book shelf for months. Then one day I picked it up again and I am so glad I did. This time I read it from chapter 4 to the end in just a couple of days. It was wonderful! Full of wisdom and love. Thank you Fannie Flagg!

Can't Wait to Get to Heaven
First Fannie Flagg I've read, but I have loved the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. Love it, if you have ever love and lost someone dear to your heart this book will give you a warm feeling. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, if other reviews say its not her best then I can't wait to read the others.

A Weak Spot for Fannie Flagg
Everyone has weak spots when it comes to literature. I love the stories of Fannie Flagg or Patricia Neal to give her real name. Ever since I read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe I have been a fan.

On the surface Flagg's books have a naive feel to them, but underneath they make a whole host of comments about human nature. By and large her characters are hometown Americans - the salt of the earth. Her books always see good prevail and at times the people are just too good to be true.

But her observations are very sharp and there is wit and humanity running through them all. Last year I found A Redbird Christmas just a little too sentimentally cloying. Can't Wait to Get to Heaven finds a better balance - never becoming over mawkish. I have to day that at one point I did begin to struggle when the main character "dies" and is ushered into the presence of a God who looks surprisingly like a former neighbour. Here the tale stretched reality just too thinly.

Thankfully after skating on the brink, the story pulls itself back to life - just as the main character does. It is essentially the story of Elner Shimfissle, a minor character in some of the previous Flagg novels. One day she falls out of a fig tree, is certified dead at the hospital, meets God, and comes back to life. Yes I know it sounds ridiculous but Flagg just about gets away with it.

The rest of the novel introduces us to many already well known characters from the world of Elmwood Springs and relates just how Elner touched their lives and there is also a mystery story in how peace loving Elner came to have a gun and what the secret is behind it.

As with most of Flagg's books all loose ends are tied up and you get to a point in this novel where you realise that process is just beginning. Although the storyline of this might be more implausible than in many of her novels there is no doubting that once again Flagg has come up with an easy to read moralistic story of everyday country folk.