Up the Creek Book Club
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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
Standing in the Rainbow
by Fannie Flagg
August 2003
Synopsis
"The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future.
Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "In small-town Elmwood Springs, Missouri, on the heels of World War II, life holds promise for little boys like Bobby Smith. America is a nation of "Coca-Cola, chocolate- covered peanuts, jukeboxes, Oxydol, Ivory Snow, oleomargarine, and the Atomic Bomb" and is "bigger, better, richer, and stronger" than anyplace else. Bobby's dad is the town's pharmacist, and his mom hosts the state's most popular morning radio program from the family's living room. This ambitious effort from the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe spans fifty years fraught with scandal and romance. The Smiths and their friends and neighbors display a kind of big-hearted optimism that has the potential to reduce their story to sentimental mush. Flagg's knack for humor and observation lend the characters a depth that rescues what might otherwise have been a typical, dramatic saga. For all its myriad twists and turns, this tale never takes an easy way out." (Anneli Rufus, Book Magazine)
- "Flagg brings her readers back to 1940s Elmwood, MO, when a family of white gospel singers bursts into town." (Library Journal)
Book Club Rating and Comments
The perfect summer read. If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Fannie Flagg
- 'Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man'
- 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'
- 'Fannie Flagg's Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook'
- 'Welcome to the World, Baby Girl'