Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Sidelined Book Review


I promised to review Nine Parts of Desire this week but I must confess that I got sidetracked with another book. 
Whenever I go into Calgary I like to take a quick trip into Chapters and always head straight for the bargain books at the back.  Often popular books in hardcover get reduced after a year and that’s when I find some real treasures.  This week I happened to discover Fannie Flagg’s latest book “The All Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion”.  How I laughed.  Fannie does it every time, creating characters who talk in such an insane way you can’t help but want to be their next best friend.
The story is another one of those back and forth stories about 1930’s Wisconsin and current Alabama.  Fritzi is a young Polish-American girl who takes up flying in the early 1930’s and along with her brother and sisters ends up in the Army during WWII.  Meanwhile Sookie is living in Alabama and trying to control her 88 year old mother.  Sookie is beyond delightful and had me in stitches at almost every page.  Fritzi had me imaging the young Gena Davis in the role.
An interesting feature of the story was the WASPs, female pilots who flew planes from the factory to their army terminals across the USA during the war.  It’s a little known part of Woman’s history and sadly these brave and talented female pilots were not recognized for their contribution to the war effort for decades.  As well there is some history around how gas stations were first introduced across the country, how they fared during the war and how they eventually died away as family businesses.
This is an easy, light read with plenty of laughs and some enlightenment along the way.  Two thumbs up for Fannie Flagg.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment