How Is Ninny Threadgoode Related To Idgie

Fannie Flagg, the Alabama-born extra and comedian, scored a all-time seller in 1987 with "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe," a gently whimsical tale set during the Depression in the mythical pocket-size boondocks of Whistle Stop, Alabama.

That led to 1991's big-screen hit "Fried Dark-green Tomatoes," which became a dear family unit archetype -- a trivial oddly, since the plot includes murder and cannibalism.

Flagg has been writing prolifically ever since, with several novels set in tiny Elwood Springs, Missouri. With "The Wonder Boy of Whistle End," however, Flagg returns to Alabama and fills in more of the story of her beloved characters.

The "Wonder Boy" of the title is Buddy Threadgoode Jr., the son of Ruth Jamison. As "Fried Dark-green Tomatoes" fans will call up, Ruth and baby Buddy fled her abusive husband and found refuge with her very, very expert "friend" Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode. (Of Buddy's no-account begetter the less said the better. Equally they say in the Southward, he needed killin')

Trivial Buddy was adopted by the extended Threadgoode family and grew up effectually the Whistle Stop Cafe, which his mom and "Aunt Idgie" ran. His was an idyllic, happy babyhood with a few bumps. At the historic period of 6, he lost his left arm in a railroad accident. (Afterwards that, the town -- in those days before Political Correctness and Sensitivity -- knew him as "Stump.") That did not, withal, prevent him from condign a one-armed quarterback, leading his loftier schoolhouse team to a land title. Then, when he was in high school, his beautiful mother died, far also young, of cancer.

We larn that Buddy -- now Bud -- graduated from Georgia Tech, married his form-schoolhouse sweetheart and became a successful veterinarian upward in Maryland.

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The story picks up, more less in the present, as 83-year-sometime Bud Threadgoode plots his escape from an Atlanta retirement domicile and catches the railroad train to Birmingham to see Whistle End 1 concluding time.

As his Aunt Ninny discovered in "Fried Green Tomatoes," even so, Whistle Stop really isn't there whatsoever more than. The town dried up afterward the railway thou closed, and the interstate finished it off.

Along the style, Bud tells stories of life in the onetime days and adventures with Aunt Idgie.

Contrary to the ending of the movie, though, Idgie did not go Ninny Threadgoode, the Jessica Tandy character. Ninny married Idgie'south older brother, Cleo. Idgie herself took off for Florida with another brother, Julian, where for decades she ran a roadside stand selling fruit and honey, and using her talents as a "bee charmer."

A side plot follows the travails of Bud'south daughter Ruthie (the spitting image of her grandmother, everyone says), who marries into Atlanta order and suffers under the Mother-in-law from Hell. Readers also run into up again with Evelyn Couch (the Kathy Bates character in the movie), who'southward gone from selling Mary Kay cosmetics to selling pink Cadillacs, making a fortune in the process.

Other characters reappear, from Sipsey the cook and Large George to the Whistle Finish postmaster, Dot Weems, whose newsletter of "alumni news" goes from mimeograph to photocopy to email.

It'due south all very pleasant in a Mayberry-ish sort of way, with a few sorries (Idgie has to go into AA after reeling from Ruth's death) and a lot of laughs. (Ruthie's mother-in-law suffers a conniption when he signs up for 23 and Me and discovers that she's descended not from the Lees of Virginia but from Mr. Lee the Chinese gardener.)

In the finish, as Birmingham expands, the Whistle Stop Cafe enjoys an expected renaissance as a subcontract-to-market artisanal eating house in the Vivian Howard mode.

None of this is particularly profound, however "Fried Light-green Tomatoes" fans will probable read it compulsively.

Ben Steelman can be reached at 910-616-1788 or peacebsteelman@gmail.com.

BOOK REVIEW

'The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop'

past Fannie Flagg

Random House, $28

Source: https://www.starnewsonline.com/story/entertainment/2021/01/30/fannie-flagg-novel-returns-whistle-stop-more-southern-tales/4277547001/

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