{"id":1311,"date":"2014-01-17T11:38:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-17T18:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1311"},"modified":"2014-01-17T11:38:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T18:38:21","slug":"and-who-do-you-think-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1311","title":{"rendered":"And who do you think you are?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some books are so good that, having read them in print, I can\u2019t wait to hear the story all over again in an audio version, with professionally rendered accents and inflections. Fannie Flagg\u2019s latest novel is that kind of book. I\u2019ve read it and listened to it, and I\u2019m still smiling.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson<\/p>\n

THE ALL-GIRL FILLING STATION\u2019S LAST REUNION. By Fannie Flagg. Read by the Author. Random House Audio. 11 hours, 9 compact discs. $46.<\/p>\n

Also available in hardback from Random House. 386 pages. $27.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Are you who you think you are? That\u2019s a question Mrs. Sookie Poole had never bothered to ask herself. If anybody knew who she was, it was Sookie. After all, she\u2019d been told over and over, all her life, by her domineering mother Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. Sookie was a Simmons, with all the attendant rights and responsibilities. Especially the responsibilities.<\/p>\n

As this delightful story opens, Sookie is at home in Point Clear, Ala., on Mobile Bay, where she\u2019s just finished marrying off the last of her three daughters (one for the second time). At 59, she\u2019s weary, and she wants some time to relax, feed her beloved birds and maybe even travel a little with her sweet husband, Earle, a dentist. They have one more child, Carter, but he\u2019s a son, and Sookie figures that whenever he gets married, the mother of the bride can bear those burdens. (A footnote: Fannie Flagg fans may recall Sookie from her 1998 novel, Welcome to the World Baby Girl<\/em>, in which Sookie was the former college roommate and sorority sister of the main character, Dena Nordstrom – who figures as a minor character in this book. )<\/p>\n

Lenore, however, is not inclined to leave Sookie in peace. Lenore is quite a character in the Southern matriarch tradition. She runs her family as if she were a general, and tries to run much of the greater world the same way. She\u2019s obsessed with her Southern ancestors, the family silver and all things having to do with society. Outsiders \u2013 at least those who haven\u2019t run afoul of her for some transgression \u2013 may think Lenore is beautiful (more beautiful than Sookie, of course), charming and interesting, but Sookie finds her to be maddeningly overbearing. Lenore has always pushed Sookie into roles and activities that didn\u2019t really suit her, and she\u2019s never hesitated to let her daughter know just how woefully Sookie falls short of Simmons standards.<\/p>\n

But one day, an unexpected phone call heralds a revelation that will turn Sookie\u2019s life upside down. The man, who\u2019s calling about a mysterious letter that\u2019s about to be delivered, can\u2019t reveal details over the phone, but when Sookie presses him in her endearing way, he finally says: \u201cYou are not who you think you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because this is only the first of many surprises in this book, it\u2019s not too great a spoiler to say that Sookie discovers that she was adopted, and that her birth mother was from a Polish family in Wisconsin named Jurdabralinski.\u00a0 And with that, the story begins to move back and forth between the Jurdabralinski family\u2019s adventures around the time of World War II and Sookie\u2019s attempts to discover who she really is and what that means.<\/p>\n

The book, in its own way, explores a number of serious themes \u2013 family, identify, courage, love, loyalty. And Flagg weaves in a lot of fascinating history, about the WASPs \u2013 Women\u2019s Air Service Pilots \u2013 in World War II, and about the effects of that war on U.S. society in general.<\/p>\n

But, in her inimitable way, Fannie Flagg also gives us many moments of wonderful humor that somehow manage to avoid becoming caricature or slapstick. There\u2019s a wealth of material here. There\u2019s the society of a small Southern town where everybody knows everybody else\u2019s business, or makes up any details or explanations that might be lacking.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s the novelty of four good-looking sisters (sometimes on roller skates) running the family gas station while their brother is off fighting the war. The stories of the early women pilots and their experiences in the air and on the ground could be a fascinating book in themselves.<\/p>\n

Sookie\u2019s quest for understanding takes her as far away as California and Wisconsin and introduces her to people and ways of life very different from the world she\u2019s always known. Along the way, she discovers that not being who you think you are \u2013 or who you\u2019ve always been told you are \u2013 can be a very good thing.<\/p>\n

This novel is funny, wise, warm and heartening. Read it. Listen to Fannie Flagg herself read it; she\u2019s especially good at doing \u201cOh, Lord, \u2026\u201d just right. Then read it again if you want. You\u2019ll be smiling, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some books are so good that, having read them in print, I can\u2019t wait to hear the story all over again in an audio version, with professionally rendered accents and inflections. Fannie Flagg\u2019s latest novel is that kind of book. I\u2019ve read it and listened to it, and I\u2019m still smiling. Reviewed by Linda C. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[530,88,531,46,102],"class_list":["post-1311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-southern-fiction","tag-fannie-flagg","tag-southern-fiction-2","tag-wasps","tag-womens-fiction","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}