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Book Summary and Reviews of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Fannie Flagg

  • Readers' Rating (4):
  • Published:
  • Jan 1997, 448 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who's in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who's telling her life story.

Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.

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Which literary death was the hardest for you to come to terms with?
Ruth Jamison in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. The entire death scene was absolutely heartbreaking. I remember having to put the book down because of how emotionally wrenching it was. When I saw...
-Sunny

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Admirers of the wise child in Flagg's first novel, Coming Attractions, will find her grown-up successor, Idgie, equally appealing. The book's best character, perhaps, is the town of Whistle Stop itself—too bad trains don't stop there anymore." —Publishers Weekly

"This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten." —Los Angeles Times

This information about Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Fannie Flagg

Fannie Flagg began writing and producing television specials at age nineteen and went on to distinguish herself as an actress and a writer in television, films, and the theater. Her first novel, Daisy Fay and The Miracle Man, spent ten weeks on the New York Times paperback bestseller list, and her second novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, was on the same list for thirty-six weeks. It was produced by Universal Pictures as the feature film Fried Green Tomatoes. Flagg's script was nominated for both the Writers Guild of America and an Academy Award, and it won the highly regarded Scripters Award. Flagg narrated both novels on audiocassette and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word.

Her latest novel is titled Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! She lives in California and Alabama.

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