![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/wonderboy.jpg\")
<\/a>THE WONDER BOY OF WHISTLE STOP. By Fannie Flagg. Random House Audio. Read by the author. 8 hours; 7 compact discs. $40. Also available in hardback from Random House.<\/strong><\/p>\nYou are in for a treat. Need an antidote to COVID, the election and all the other things 2020 has thrown at us? Here it is. Read this book, or, better yet, let Fannie Flagg read her own words to you.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t worry if you somehow haven\u2019t read Flagg\u2019s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Caf\u00e9.<\/em> You can still love this latest Whistle Stop book. In her own sometimes rambling, conversational way, Flagg fills in the relevant background and history \u2013 and gives us some insights we didn\u2019t get the first time. In any event, this delightful story can stand on its own. The characters and their joys and heartbreaks come wonderfully to life.<\/p>\n I read the first book some years ago and remembered its broad outlines. The more I listened to the new one, the more I wanted to revisit some of the details of the first. A few minutes online accomplished that.<\/p>\n If you never read Fried Green Tomatoes<\/em>, reading Wonder Boy <\/em>will surely make you want to do so, or at least watch the movie. Come to think of it, I might watch the movie again. Whistle Stop could be addictive.<\/p>\n But for now, just enjoy Wonder Boy<\/em>. As you\u2019d expect, this is a story liberally laced with humor and warm insights into the foibles of human nature. It\u2019s also a classic Southern novel, told through sorts of the colorful anecdotes and memories that might be shared on a front porch on a warm, honeysuckle-scented summer night.<\/p>\n The wonder boy of the title is Bud Threadgoode, the one-armed boy (you\u2019ll find out why) who grew up in the 1930s in the little Alabama railroad town called Whistle Stop. He was raised by his mother, Ruth, and his Aunt Idgie. Though they could hardly have been more different on the surface \u2013 Ruth was a church-going, convention-obeying proper lady, while Idgie, always a tomboy, was given to drinking, gambling and other sins \u2013 the two had a close relationship that went beyond the caf\u00e9 they operated together.<\/p>\n Through Flagg\u2019s delightful stories, we learn how Bud grew up, married and had a daughter and a career that took him away from Whistle Stop. Now he\u2019s an elderly widower, living in a posh retirement home in Atlanta, near his only child, Ruthie, herself a widow. Ruthie married into old Atlanta money, but unfortunately, Martha Lee Caldwell, a domineering mother-in-law who lives in the mansion next door, was part of the deal. In Flagg\u2019s skilled hands, Martha Lee becomes a rich source of humor.<\/p>\n After many enjoyable diversions and excursions back and forth over nearly a century, Flagg gets to the main action of the new novel. All sorts of developments are triggered when Bud, without telling anyone, runs away from the home on a quest to see what\u2019s become of his beloved Whistle Stop. He eventually discovers that Whistle Stop essentially is no more; the railroad business changed, people moved away, and the town became a ghost town. What buildings are left \u2013 even the beloved old caf\u00e9 \u2013 are in shambles.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t worry. Things are about to get really interesting, in a good way.<\/p>\n Been needing a respite, a treat, a real escape? Here it is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE WONDER BOY OF WHISTLE STOP. By Fannie Flagg. Random House Audio. Read by the author. 8 hours; 7 compact discs. $40. Also available in hardback from Random House. You are in for a treat. Need an antidote to COVID, the election and all the other things 2020 has thrown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,897,426,4],"tags":[820,530,88,1176,1175],"class_list":["post-2718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-humorous-fiction","category-popular-fiction","category-southern-fiction","tag-audio-books","tag-fannie-flagg","tag-southern-fiction-2","tag-the-wonder-boy-of-whistle-stop","tag-whistle-stop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718","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=2718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2720,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2718\/revisions\/2720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}