Read Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! Online
Authors: Fannie Flagg
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
“RICH AND REWARDING …
[Flagg’s] growth is evident as she delves deeper into matters only touched on in her previous novels.… Her characters are as real as the folks sitting next to you, the people in your family album. Full of pathos, the impact of this little book will stay with you long after you put it down.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Gripping … Fans of the charming Southern novel
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
will also enjoy Fannie Flagg’s latest.”
—Boston Sunday Herald
“If you’re among the fans who can’t get enough of Rebecca Wells’s
Divine Secrets Of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
, you won’t soon leave this tempting, all-you-can-read buffet.… Expect to spend a lot of sleepless nights savoring this bundle of joy.”
—Clarion-Ledger
(MS)
“Another winner … An assortment of zany, lovable, and intriguing characters … Catapults the reader, through a rash of revelations, to a surprising denouement. Don’t think you can begin
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
and then put it down for a few days. But don’t read it too fast, either; it definitely invites savoring, sort of like a big dish of the richest homemade strawberry ice cream.”
—Chattanooga Free Press
“The Garrison Keillor factor—that’s the strength of Fannie Flagg’s latest novel.… A delightful take full of solid values and savory small-town tidbits. Though Flagg’s narrative territory is the American South, her stories are kissing cousins to Keillor’s Minnesota-based Lake Wobegon tales.”
—The Boston Phoenix
“It’s a tale of tough, eccentric, endearing women who first endure and then prevail.… It will make you laugh out loud—and shed a few tears.… It will touch your heart and imbed itself in your memory.… It’s profoundly American.… The novel is filled with Miss Flagg’s trademark comic touches, but the book’s strength, as always, is its author’s love for people.… Deeply imagined and fully realized characters …
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
is another rattling success.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“TALK ABOUT FUN TO READ …
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
is about life in a small Missouri town and life in the Big Apple. It’s about homespun wisdom and commercial skullduggery, what’s right and what’s wrong with America. And it’s a mystery story.… Flagg has a perfect sense of place. She’s the author of
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
, and
Welcome
has a lot of the same down-home humor and down-home common sense.”
—Detroit Free Press
“A well-choreographed story of loyalty and survival that zigzags deftly across the postwar years, panning in on the never-changing decency of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, then pulling back to watch national TV news devolve into sensationalism—all the while drawing us into the compelling life of Dena Nordstrom.… Dena’s college friend Sookie and great-aunt Elner are reminders of how well Flagg can cook up memorable women from the most down-to-earth ingredients, while a cameo by Tennessee Williams is uncannily true to life.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Considerable charm … Witty dialogue … Fannie Flagg hails from the southern-fried school of novel writing, which means her books are as lively as a burlap bag stuffed with possums, thanks largely to characters who always have something wise or funny to say and invariably do just that.… There’s plenty of insight into the workings of the human heart, too.… A worthy successor to
Fried Green Tomatoes
. Flagg can tell a story and draws characters who possess blood and bone.”
—The Denver Post
“
Baby Girl
fires on many of the same cylinders as
Tomatoes
.… A fascinating set of characters … Full of Flagg’s pitch-perfect dialogue … Wonderful scenes and vignettes.”
—Winston-Salem Journal
“Extremely enjoyable … Quite moving … [An] engaging paean to the joys of down-home Southern life.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“ENTERTAINING … THE CHARACTERS SING.…
You’ll love everyone connected with Elmwood Springs.”
—The Hartford Courant
“Another endearing tale, spun in Flagg’s trademark nostalgia … One of the strengths of Flagg’s work is its ability to immerse readers in the rich milieu of rural Southern life.… Few writers conjure the small-town world of unlocked doors, decent folk who bake cakes for sick neighbors, and Friday night bonfires down at the local high school with the sweetness and sentiment Flagg manages.… [At] moments one can practically smell the doughnuts being tipped out of the fryer at the Elmwood Springs coffee shop or hear thumb bells being rung by kids passing on bicycles.… Many will be unable to resist traveling with her down the back roads to self-discovery and, eventually, to home.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Fannie Flagg gives popular fiction a good name.… Flagg excels at strong, striving, and good-hearted small-town women.… While building the suspense, she also supplies diversions by way of a big, spirited cast of supporting characters.… Let others pretend to literary greatness. Flagg goes for literary goodness—and achieves it, colors flying.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Flagg has created a novel nothing short of glorious.… At long last, Fannie Flagg has invited readers back onto her fictional front porch for a much-overdue installment of down-home writing. Settle back with
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
and prepare to lose yourself in 467 pages of incredible storytelling, delightful characters, and wonderfully hypnotic prose. The only thing Flagg does better than weaving compelling narratives is conjuring memorable characters to populate them.… Meaty, funny, page-turning, and just as delicious as Neighbor Dorothy’s melt-in-your mouth circus cakes … Flagg has tenderly, delicately, lovingly created another wonderful novel. It would be a shame not to spend time on her latest front porch, listening to the radio waves crackle through the night and far into Canada.”
—Grand Rapids Press
“Flagg’s memorable prose and unforgettable characters—especially her wise women with their quirky, homespun charm—make this novel a worthwhile read.”
—Houston Chronicle
ALSO BY FANNIE FLAGG
Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven*
A Redbird Christmas
Standing in the Rainbow
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man
(originally published as
Coming Attractions
)
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Fannie Flagg’s Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook
*forthcoming
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1998 by Willina Lane Productions, Inc.
Reading group guide copyright by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Warner Bros. Publications U.S., Inc., for permission to reprint excerpts from “You’re All the World to Me” by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, copyright © 1949 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., and copyright renewed 1977 by EMI Miller Catalog, Inc., and excerpts from “You’re the Top” by Cole Porter, copyright © 1934 (renewed) by Warner Bros., Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S., Inc.,
Miami, FL 33014.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Reader’s Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-109768
eISBN: 978-0-307-79095-8
v3.1
For Sam and Jo Vaughan, with love
I would like to thank the following, whose encouragement and support have been invaluable to me: Susie Glickman, Lois Scott, De-Thomas Bobo & Associates, Ulf Buchholz, Wendy Weil, Steve Warren, Sally Wilcox, Mrs. Ray Rogers, Evelyn Birkby, Colleen Zuck and staff, the State of Alabama, and especially all my friends and family, who are a joy to me every day.
“… Poor little old human beings—they’re jerked into this world without having any idea where they came from or what it is they are supposed to do, or how long they have to do it in. Or where they are gonna wind up after that. But bless their hearts, most of them wake up every morning and keep on trying to make some sense out of it. Why, you can’t help but love them, can you? I just wonder why more of them aren’t as crazy as betsy bugs.”
—Aunt Elner, 1978