Book Review

Author/comedienne Fannie Flagg's many fans will be greatly entertained as she continues the saga of Elwood Springs, Missouri, in her latest novel, The Whole Town's Talking. Deftly weaving together bits of history, sprinkles of whimsey, and bushels of laughs she cast a spell of nostalgia for the small towns of yesteryear that now only exist in the memories of a very few. Through a series of vignettes, she recreates the birth, rise and fall of Elwood Springs. In doing so, she has re-acquainted her readers with some of her more memorable characters. For instance, my favorite character, Elner Shimfissle, once a cooked a meal for Bonnie and Clyde (yes, that Bonnie and Clyde) and invited them to visit her brother-in-law at his bank before leaving town. She stressed that they should tell him that she sent them. Elner, being the good hearted soul that she was, had no idea who her guests were or that they planned on robbing, er, visiting that bank before leaving town.

However, the main focus of the book is not on the town of Elwood Springs, but on the other town of Elwood Springs, namely its cemetery, Still Meadows. When the town founder Lordor Nordstrom donated land for the townspeople's final resting place, he had no idea what was going to happen. Unfortunately, while it remained a meadow, it did remain still or restful after the town folk began dying. Seemingly, after a person died and was laid to rest, they did not remain at rest. so to speak--in fact, they woke up and began talking (no, they were not zombies!). As more and more of the townspeople died, the cemetery became a small town(in a round-about way) with former friends and neighbors talking to one another and, in truth, enjoying being dead more than they had enjoyed being alive. However, they soon found that were two major drawbacks to this happy afterlife. When an exciting event happened in the actual town and the latest arrival ,the dearly departed, imparted this, they sometimes had to wait months, years, or even decades to learn "the rest of the story". The second drawback was that, ever so often, someone who had been there disappeared--they just stopped talking and was never heard from again.

This book is Flagg at her finest with her subtle humor, wonderful storytelling and the accuracy with which she portrays small town life. Without being aware of it, the reader is caught up with what's happening both above and below ground, from romance to murder to everything in between.

All in all, it is a book that I did not want to end, with characters that I would like to know and a town in which I would like to live, above ground, of course!