ivianese 's review for:

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

4.0

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Fanny Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes is an interesting meditation on nostalgia and change. Mostly told from the perspective of an older woman remembering life in her small Alabama home town in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, the novel tackles complicated issues of racism, the Depression, and homelessness. It even explores what it was like for a lesbian couple to live in such a challenging era (much more blatantly than the film, I should add). I appreciate that Flagg does not sugar-coat the South. She is open about the racism and segregation present within the culture, and she shows how that plays out in this one small community. The novel has an inspiring through-line that brings it to a satisfying conclusion--the past is complicated, messy, and full or heartache and mistakes, but by reflecting on our history, we can often better understand ourselves in the present. That's a message we all should hear.