My baby girl turns 22 today, so this seems like an appropriate choice. I recently reread Fannie Flagg's terrific follow up to Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
and it holds up beautifully. The story deftly travels from small town Missouri to the dog-eat-dog world of national news broadcasting. Dena Nordstrom, star of America's most popular morning news show, is on emotional autopilot until the stress of her job (and not-so-nice coworkers) gives her a hemorrhaging ulcer. She goes home to unearth the scandal that drove her mother from her hometown and discover the truth about the war hero father she never knew. The cast of colorful (but not overly cute) characters, including Tennessee Williams, keep laughter and tears close to the surface. (It's Fannie Flagg. That says it all.) Published right at the cultural crossroads where we veered away from Walter Cronkite to embrace infotainment as a substitute for being well informed, this book actually weighs quite prescient a decade later.
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