Almost ten years later, I’m reading it again and the voice, it’s like an old friend. It’s easy with just the right details. The characters, I never forgot them. But how the story is bound and how the author, Fannie Flagg, traverses across timelines, were things I never noticed. It’s a complicated story with many subplots and many themes underlying the plot.[break]
The storyline has complex themes that could have been tricky without that personal, storytelling narrative of Ninny Threadgoode. Ninny’s story is set in the present time period of 1980s, the other times span from 1929 to 1979. The change in time is marked with chapter changes, the setting, and the characters that appear in the particular timelines. Sometimes, Flagg uses fictional newspaper pieces and the points of view of other narrators. All of this is done elegantly with simple details or change in voice.
Ninny Threadgoode is from the small town of Whistle Stop, Alabama. She meets Evelyn at the nursing home and begins to tell her the story of Whistle Stop; except Evelyn hadn’t really come to see Ninny. She doesn’t even know who Ninny is. She came to visit her mother-in-law whom she doesn’t really like. Ninny seems not to notice. She tells Evelyn about the Whistle Stop Cafe, about Idgie and the day she declared she would never wear a dress again, about Ruth and her awful husband, about the Threadgoodes, Big George, Sipsey’s famous fried green tomatoes, Smokey and the hobos, and all that happened in her little town when she was young.
Idgie is a wonderful character, and even Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird is quoted to have said -- Idgie Threadgoode is a true original: Huckleberry Finn would have tried to marry her!
Whether Idgie herself would have wanted to marry Huck is another question. She’s a feisty, stubborn girl with a lot of gumption. She falls head over heels in love with Ruth and when Ruth leaves with her husband, Frank Bennett, Idgie also leaves home. Only her black friend Big George knows where she is. But Ruth is badly off, beaten by her husband and unable to run away. She finally sends a page from the book of Ruth to Idgie who comes with Big George to take her away. However, Frank Bennett goes missing shortly after and the mystery of his disappearance; revealed at the end illustrate how close the characters were, and questions the issues of justice.[break]
Parallel to Idgie’s story is Evelyn’s, a middle-aged woman dealing with menopause and a marriage that seems to be stuck in a rut. She begins to visit Ninny regularly and in listening to Idgie’s story, finds her own confidence. She starts selling cosmetics and buys a pink Cadillac, takes charge of her life and finds a way of dealing with menopause. When she’s away at a lodge, she receives word that Ninny has passed away and had left a note for her. The note includes the recipe for the famous fried green tomatoes that Sipsey cooked at Whistle Stop Cafe. At the end of the book we read, these recipes are included in case you want to fry some green tomatoes for yourself. Also included are Southern recipes for Fried Okra, Fried Catfish, and Fried Green Tomatoes with Milk Gravy.
In the early 90s, the film version of the book was released, with a script written by Fannie Flagg. It’s one of those rare films, as good as the book. And the book is already a modern classic.
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