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erica_o 's review for:
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
by Fannie Flagg
This story is racist as hell.
Just in case you were wondering.
I'd never been interested in this book or the movie. This wasn't at all my cup of tea when it came out; I was in the middle of my high school career and only reading classics or fantasy and some science fiction. Domestic fiction, especially Southern, was an anathema.
I'm not sure why I had this on my Overdrive wish list. Maybe it showed up on its own? Or maybe I've just expanded my reading interests (now I'll read anything that isn't full of romance because: GROSS!) far enough that this fell into my net at some point. Whatever the case, I finally listened to this book that was all the rage for years during my more youthful times.
And it's racist as hell.
So probably it should be one star, right?
Probably.
But I can't honestly say I didn't enjoy large parts of this book.
Actually, this was a weird read, sort of two versions that happened simultaneously. Putting the story in the context of 1987, it was pretty open-minded and possibly even progressive, at least for white people, specifically middle-class white women. Any non-white American readers at the time would have seen just how shittily this story treats its black characters.
Still, it evokes that nostalgia for the years between World Wars, of gritty, bootstrap-pulling characters in a tiny town who get along just fine, where the sheriff is a member of the KKK but runs out another group of KKKers because the fine people of Whistlestop take care of their own, including their coloreds. Pie is served for a nickel, wife-abusers go missing and no one's interested in looking any deeper into their whereabouts, a band of hobos and prostitutes live down by a river (not in a van) but don't bother the townsfolk none. Kids die or lose body parts on the railroad tracks and it's sad but everyone comes out ok in the end because that's just how things were back then. There's a golden glow over the town and not just in Ninnie Threadgoode's rosy, sentimental memories.
30 years later, the racism is blatant and loud, covered with that "I'm not a racist" veneer that bigoted white people, specifically middle-class white women, love to use. There's lots of "I have black friends!"...(so I've been given license to say shit and believe shit I want to say and believe even though I know it's shit) going on. It's cringeworthy and it sucked. And it's sappy, overly nostalgic for something that has never actually existed.
But then there's this strong current of feminism running throughout the book. Not third wave feminism, but that coming-out-of-the-dark ages feminism that just seemed to have occurred naturally after the 60's, a sort of after-shock from the first wave. Also, there's a lesbian couple that isn't presented as "OMG, look how forward this book is by featuring a lesbian couple!" but, rather, is just another couple among many in the story. I think that, more than anything, shocked me because I don't remember 1987 being a terribly inclusive time for gay folk. Hell, contemporary media still can't treat a lesbian couple as just another couple.
I'm sure this book was hotly contested in churchy circles but Flagg introduced Ninnie Threadgoode, octogenarian and devout Christian who loves Oral Roberts but doesn't like Tammy Faye, as an even-minded (racist as hell) moderate conservative, white, former-housewife who is now in a nursing home. How was she received? I don't know because I didn't care about this book when it came out but I think if this were the big blockbuster novel of the summer now, there'd be plenty of bitching about its portrayal of moral decline on Facebook despite the Ninnie avatar.
Actually, Ninnie's stories of old Whistlestop reminded me so much of the stories in [b:Big Fish|129984|Big Fish|Daniel Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348134701s/129984.jpg|855961], seemingly tall tales that have been gilded with the patina of remembered better times that were never actually any better at all. There was a strong sense of "Even though things were hard, people and life were more wholesome back then" throughout the story; sentimentality at its finest. But that sort of narrative is appealing on several levels; it's nice to think there was a better time, even if we know there really wasn't.
I did appreciate the still-relevant topics of aging and the fear of not being young anymore, of first friendships and first endings, of finding oneself, of dying towns and forgotten people. I was also amused that Sipsey's recipes are my family's recipes, I grew up with that cooking. Is it Southern or is that just how people across the nation cooked? I don't know, I just know that that's how I make chicken and dumplings, too.
All in all, this is a story well-told with strong characters and an interesting, meandering plot but it really is racist as hell.
Just in case you were wondering.
I'd never been interested in this book or the movie. This wasn't at all my cup of tea when it came out; I was in the middle of my high school career and only reading classics or fantasy and some science fiction. Domestic fiction, especially Southern, was an anathema.
I'm not sure why I had this on my Overdrive wish list. Maybe it showed up on its own? Or maybe I've just expanded my reading interests (now I'll read anything that isn't full of romance because: GROSS!) far enough that this fell into my net at some point. Whatever the case, I finally listened to this book that was all the rage for years during my more youthful times.
And it's racist as hell.
So probably it should be one star, right?
Probably.
But I can't honestly say I didn't enjoy large parts of this book.
Actually, this was a weird read, sort of two versions that happened simultaneously. Putting the story in the context of 1987, it was pretty open-minded and possibly even progressive, at least for white people, specifically middle-class white women. Any non-white American readers at the time would have seen just how shittily this story treats its black characters.
Still, it evokes that nostalgia for the years between World Wars, of gritty, bootstrap-pulling characters in a tiny town who get along just fine, where the sheriff is a member of the KKK but runs out another group of KKKers because the fine people of Whistlestop take care of their own, including their coloreds. Pie is served for a nickel, wife-abusers go missing and no one's interested in looking any deeper into their whereabouts, a band of hobos and prostitutes live down by a river (not in a van) but don't bother the townsfolk none. Kids die or lose body parts on the railroad tracks and it's sad but everyone comes out ok in the end because that's just how things were back then. There's a golden glow over the town and not just in Ninnie Threadgoode's rosy, sentimental memories.
30 years later, the racism is blatant and loud, covered with that "I'm not a racist" veneer that bigoted white people, specifically middle-class white women, love to use. There's lots of "I have black friends!"...(so I've been given license to say shit and believe shit I want to say and believe even though I know it's shit) going on. It's cringeworthy and it sucked. And it's sappy, overly nostalgic for something that has never actually existed.
But then there's this strong current of feminism running throughout the book. Not third wave feminism, but that coming-out-of-the-dark ages feminism that just seemed to have occurred naturally after the 60's, a sort of after-shock from the first wave. Also, there's a lesbian couple that isn't presented as "OMG, look how forward this book is by featuring a lesbian couple!" but, rather, is just another couple among many in the story. I think that, more than anything, shocked me because I don't remember 1987 being a terribly inclusive time for gay folk. Hell, contemporary media still can't treat a lesbian couple as just another couple.
I'm sure this book was hotly contested in churchy circles but Flagg introduced Ninnie Threadgoode, octogenarian and devout Christian who loves Oral Roberts but doesn't like Tammy Faye, as an even-minded (racist as hell) moderate conservative, white, former-housewife who is now in a nursing home. How was she received? I don't know because I didn't care about this book when it came out but I think if this were the big blockbuster novel of the summer now, there'd be plenty of bitching about its portrayal of moral decline on Facebook despite the Ninnie avatar.
Actually, Ninnie's stories of old Whistlestop reminded me so much of the stories in [b:Big Fish|129984|Big Fish|Daniel Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348134701s/129984.jpg|855961], seemingly tall tales that have been gilded with the patina of remembered better times that were never actually any better at all. There was a strong sense of "Even though things were hard, people and life were more wholesome back then" throughout the story; sentimentality at its finest. But that sort of narrative is appealing on several levels; it's nice to think there was a better time, even if we know there really wasn't.
I did appreciate the still-relevant topics of aging and the fear of not being young anymore, of first friendships and first endings, of finding oneself, of dying towns and forgotten people. I was also amused that Sipsey's recipes are my family's recipes, I grew up with that cooking. Is it Southern or is that just how people across the nation cooked? I don't know, I just know that that's how I make chicken and dumplings, too.
All in all, this is a story well-told with strong characters and an interesting, meandering plot but it really is racist as hell.