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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
The one and only Fannie Flagg, beloved author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, and I Still Dream About You, is at her hilarious and superb best in this new comic mystery novel about two women who are forced to reimagine who they are.
Mrs. Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to relaxing and perhaps traveling with her husband, Earle. The only thing left to contend with is her mother, the formidable Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. Lenore may be a lot of fun for other people, but is, for the most part, an overbearing presence for her daughter. Then one day, quite by accident, Sookie discovers a secret about her mother’s past that knocks her for a loop and suddenly calls into question everything she ever thought she knew about herself, her family, and her future.
Sookie begins a search for answers that takes her to California, the Midwest, and back in time, to the 1940s, when an irrepressible woman named Fritzi takes on the job of running her family’s filling station. Soon truck drivers are changing their routes to fill up at the All-Girl Filling Station. Then, Fritzi sees an opportunity for an even more groundbreaking adventure. As Sookie learns about the adventures of the girls at the All-Girl Filling Station, she finds herself with new inspiration for her own life.
Fabulous, fun-filled, spanning decades and generations, and centered on a little-known aspect of America’s twentieth-century story, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is another irresistible novel by the remarkable Fannie Flagg.
Praise for The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion
“A beautifully told tale, world-class humor, and characters who live forever in a grateful reader’s world. Fannie Flagg keeps getting better and better. The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion proves it.”—Pat Conroy
“If all the self-help books that promote ways to ‘find yourself’ were stacked in an enormous pile . . . none would approach the sweet wisdom with which Flagg infuses The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“It’s Flagg’s pleasure to hit her characters with several happy endings, but the real happiness is that she’s given us another lovable—and quirky—novel.”—The Washington Post
“Flagg is at her South-skewering best. . . . A chuckle-while-reading book.”—The Mobile Press-Register
“The kind of story that keeps readers turning pages in a fever . . . There are plot twists, adventure, heartbreak, and familial love in spades.”—Publishers Weekly
“Fannie flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride. . . . A charming story written with wit and empathy . . . just the right blend of history and fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Fannie Flagg is a fantastic storyteller. She surprises the reader in every chapter with unexpected twists and turns. The only problem I had with this fascinating story is that it ended too soon. I can’t wait for her next book.”—Carol Burnett
“The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is an absolute joy to read, full of Fannie Flagg's trademark humor, warmth, tenderness, and heart.”—Kristin Hannah
- Sales Rank: #12482 in Books
- Brand: Flagg, Fannie
- Published on: 2014-07-29
- Released on: 2014-07-29
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .80" w x 5.20" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 384 pages
Amazon.com Review
A Conversation with Fannie Flagg and Pat Conroy
Teresa Weaver of Atlanta Magazine caught up with bestselling authors Fannie Flagg and Pat Conroy to talk about their newest novels.
Teresa Weaver: These two books are very different in so many ways, but at the heart of both, it really is all about family. Fannie, you managed to tell the whole history of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) through one extraordinary family. What kind of research did you do for this book?
Fannie Flagg: I read almost every book that was written about them and talked to a lot of them.
TW: What drew you to this subject?
FF: There's a restaurant in Birmingham called the Whistle Stop Café, the café that I wrote Fried Green Tomatoes about. I happened to call the café one day, because I'm friends with the owner, and she said, “Oh! We’ve got a group of gals here having lunch that used to fly military planes. They were WASPs.” I said, “That’s fabulous. Let me buy them lunch.” They started writing me letters and sending me books about them. I always wanted to write about them, but I couldn't figure out how. I had to create another story going on — one, a southern family, which of course I always write about, and one, the story of the WASPs.
TW: Pat, after all the autobiographical breadcrumbs that you dropped in your fiction over the years, now you finally tell the full, unvarnished story of your family. How difficult was that?
Pat Conroy: With my book, I'm dealing with my father, the most Yankeefied man that ever lived, and my mother, the most falsely classical southerner. Everything about my mother that she said was from the old South, the aristocratic South, was completely and utterly false, as I found out when I wrote this book.
But these two people got married in World War II and that's how lives get changed. The pilot from Chicago met the beauty on Peachtree Road and they got married and produced one of the most horrible families that ever lived in America.
FF: Every time I finish one of Pat's books, I want to take all of my books, burn them, change my name and move to another country. He stuns me with his clarity, his honesty about writing about what is so close to him. I was so close to a bad childhood that I blotted it out.
But Pat is absolutely brilliant. I don't know how he does it, remembering details like scenes in a movie. And this new book, I just sobbed. It was stunning.
TW: It's difficult to read at some points because it is so honest and so hard to imagine living through.
PC: Dad drank and then he beat you and he beat mom and he beat everybody else. What dad was good at was making all of us alcoholics later. The memory of that was seared in my memory, and I could not get rid of it.
Now, to answer Fannie, when I read her books, I think, why wasn't I a woman born in Alabama? Hilarious stories happened to me, but my stories don't seem hilarious to me; they seem simply out of King Lear. I just read Fannie's book and I'm roaring laughing. Then she always hits me with a part that breaks my heart.
TW: Fannie, there's such a sweet natured appeal to the characters in your novels. Have you written many really mean or despicable characters?
FF: Oh, yes. In Fried Green Tomatoes there was Frank Bennett. In this one, too, there's a bad guy. But usually I don't. I don't know why.
But I want to talk about these dysfunctional childhoods. I think people are always asking why southern writers do this so well. I'm working on a theory. I think the thing that injures people the most is humiliation. Most people don't know, or choose not to remember, that the south was the only part of the United States that was ever defeated in war. And so we were humiliated. That is a wound that doesn't heal. All the Southerners had was their so-called family name. That's all they had left. Being humiliated injures people, and it makes you want to explain yourself and keep saying but, but, but, but, but.
TW: What do you think of that, Pat?
PC: I agree. There's something about the storytelling mystique that comes out of the South. My mother and grandmother raised me to hate William Tecumseh Sherman. I didn't even know who he was. But he burned Atlanta. I read about Sherman while I was at [the Citadel] and I thought, good soldier. I told my mother this and she said she would never speak to me again if I ever mentioned a word.
Fannie can write that bad South. This gal Lenore in her new book, you know, southern womanhood has rarely been so roasted or put over the grill so well. That woman drove me nuts.
TW: I think we've all known a Lenore. Fannie, do any people from your real life ever make their way into your novels?
FF: Yes. Lenore, the southern matriarch, was based very closely on my grandmother and my mother's relationship. Sookie is a combination of gals I went to school with. I think I write about the South because the characters down there are so bigger than life, that it's easy for me. People go “Oh, there can't be people like that.” But Pat and I know there really are.
TW: Fannie, you divide your time between California and Alabama, but do you still think of yourself as a southern writer?
FF: Yes, I do. Even when I am writing about another area, I am still writing with a southern point of view. I always write about southerners. I think it's like being in a different country.
TW: Pat, you talk in your book about how you wanted this to be a kind of summing up of all the family drama. Do you feel better now that you've written this book?
PC: No. I thought I would, and I thought I would make my family feel better. But I'm racing now from relatives, my southern branch who come from Piedmont, Alabama. I'm worried about the cousinry coming at me. The Irish Catholics, dad's family in Chicago: I sort of don't know how they're going to take it. If the past is any prologue, they will take it badly, and they will hate me for the rest of their lives, and no one will be named Patrick in the next hundred years in my family.
But it's funny about a bad childhood, you can mess around with it, throw it up in the air. It's got an amazing second life that is always springing to life inside you. I don't think you can ever escape it. It's always going to be there in some way, shape or form. I can write a thousand books and it's still going to be the thing that fashioned me more than anything else.
From Booklist
Aging daughter of the South Sookie Simmons Poole has trudged along cheerfully through life under the shadow of her overbearing mother, Lenore. Faced with empty-nest syndrome, Sookie knows she won’t be too bored, since Lenore lives right next door and still has her mail delivered to Sookie’s house. When a mysterious letter arrives, Sookie questions everything she ever knew about her family, and her story soon dovetails with that of a proud Polish family from Wisconsin. The Jurdabralinskis’ gas station was nearly shuttered when all the area men joined up during WWII, but the family’s four girls bravely stepped up. Eldest daughter Fritzi was already a great mechanic, having been a professional stunt plane pilot in the 1930s. When Fritzi joins the WASPS, an elite but downplayed female branch of the U.S. Air Force, the story really comes to life. Flagg’s storytelling talent is on full display. Her trademark quirky characters are warm and realistic, and the narrative switches easily between the present and the past. HIGH DEMAND BACKSTORY: Flagg’s fans won’t be disappointed in this one, and there’s a lot to be said for giving tribute to the real-life WASPs (the official records of the force were classified and sealed for nearly 35 years). Great possibilities for nonfiction pairings abound for book clubs. --Rebecca Vnuk
Review
“A beautifully told tale, world-class humor, and characters who live forever in a grateful reader’s world. Fannie Flagg keeps getting better and better. The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion proves it.”—Pat Conroy
“Flagg spins another charming tale of the peaks and valleys of everyday life. . . . If all the self-help books that promote ways to ‘find yourself’ were stacked in an enormous pile . . . none would approach the sweet wisdom with which Flagg infuses The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion. And neither could they match the author’s essential kindness, nor her unwavering tenderness toward and belief in humanity, despite all its foibles and foolishness. She understands, but she does so with love.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“It’s Flagg’s pleasure to hit her characters with several happy endings, but the real happiness is that she’s given us another lovable—and quirky—novel.”—The Washington Post
“Flagg is at her South-skewering best. . . . A chuckle-while-reading book.”—The Mobile Press-Register
“The kind of story that keeps readers turning pages in a fever . . . There are plot twists, adventure, heartbreak, and familial love in spades.”—Publishers Weekly
“Fannie flies high, and her fans will enjoy the ride. . . . A charming story written with wit and empathy . . . just the right blend of history and fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Flagg’s storytelling talent is on full display. Her trademark quirky characters are warm and realistic, and the narrative switches easily between the present and the past. Flagg’s fans won’t be disappointed in this one, and there’s a lot to be said for giving tribute to the real-life WASPs. . . . Great possibilities for nonfiction pairings abound for book clubs.”—Booklist
“Yet again, Flagg delivers a book full of heartwarming charm that is sure to provoke lighthearted laughter. A complex story told simply and honestly . . . another treat for Flagg fans.”—Library Journal
“Fannie Flagg is a fantastic storyteller. She surprises the reader in every chapter with unexpected twists and turns. The only problem I had with this fascinating story is that it ended too soon. I can’t wait for her next book.”—Carol Burnett
“The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is an absolute joy to read, full of Fannie Flagg's trademark humor, warmth, tenderness, and heart. If you’re looking for a novel to lift your spirits and make you smile, this is definitely the book for you.”—Kristin Hannah
“An engaging, heartfelt story where family secrets unfurl and the past reshapes the present in surprising ways. Fannie Flagg has crafted a love letter to the courageous women who accomplished the extraordinary on the homefront during World War II.”—Beth Hoffman
“Sly and funny, and a delight from beginning to end. Reading Fannie Flagg is like sitting on the porch and listening to a master storyteller, until night falls and the tale is finally told, then not wanting to move a muscle because the story is still resonating in the quiet around you.”—Sarah Addison Allen
“The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion has all of the ingredients we hope to find in a Fannie Flagg novel. With its unforgettable characters, wildly hilarious scenes, and deeply touching moments, this novel is loaded with delights.”—Edward Kelsey Moore
“There is no novelist better at exploring the sunny side of the American soul than Fannie Flagg. Her books cast a marvelous spell—one minute I’m laughing, the next minute a lump in my throat, and then a sad smile with a rush of deep feeling. The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is charming, funny, and deeply satisfying.”—Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama and Georgia Bottom
From the Hardcover edition.
Most helpful customer reviews
139 of 143 people found the following review helpful.
Flagg has done it again
By D. Williams
This latest novel by Fannie Flagg has everything readers of Flagg's earlier works have come to expect. The plot line has several surprises, the style is distinctively Flagg, and the characters are richly created.
Readers see two main story threads. One is in near-present-day Point Clear, Alabama. Sookie Poole, wife of the local dentist and a definitive "Old South" lady, has an eccentric mother to try to keep under control, and a friend, Marvaleen, who is interested in New Age and yoga and encourages Sookie to do the same. Sookie loves to feed the wild birds, but one difficulty of her day is the fact that the larger birds shoo away the small ones.
The other story thread is set in Pulaski, Wisconsin, beginning in 1939 and carrying to the end of World War 2. It's the story of four sisters there who run a filling station on their own as war breaks out. One sister, Fritzi, is a real daredevil and has been a pilot and a wing walker. Another sister is very quiet and attends mass regularly.
These two plot threads are joined by a letter that comes for Sookie's mother, which Sookie opens and reads because she has power of attorney over her mother's affairs. Plenty of surprises abound, and something that you least expect happens.
If you want to try a sharp/funny book that is of the same caliber as Flagg's FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, try this book.
79 of 80 people found the following review helpful.
Marvelous
By Holly
I am going to give a bit of advice regarding this book:
1) If you have loved Fannie Flagg's other books or enjoy southern fiction, you won't go wrong with this one.
2) Many of the reviews posted give away most (if not all in some cases) of the plot's twists and turns. Spoilers abound with no warning. Be careful about reading them if you wish to be surprised.
Now that that is out of the way, I would like to share with you that Fannie Flagg knows how to tell a tale and do it well. Over the years, I have read just about everything she has written and she is a writer worth re-reading in my opinion. Some books have struck more of a chord than others, but all have been good. This novel is no exception. Flipping between the time periods of 2005 and World War II, there is a little bit of everything here and will appeal to a wide variety of readers. The unpublicized role of women in the war effort adds an historical fiction flare; the family secrets explored are worthy of some of the best women's fiction writers out there; and one of the over-the-top characters adds humor to what could have been a series heavy, emotional topics.
While Ms. Flagg keeps the reader entertained throughout all the pages, there is real meat to this story that can't be ignored. She manages to convey so much without the reader fully grasping at the time how much is there. Only upon further reflection do you realize how masterful she is.
I loved the book and will be recommending it to many friends with all varieties of reading tastes.
50 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
THE ALL-GIRL FILLING STATION'S LAST REUNION: A NOVEL
By C. Yates
If possible I would give Fannie Flagg's new novel more than five stars!!! The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel is an absolute delight to read...you can't put it down and you don't want it to end. Feeling as if you have had an afternoon with a true southerner who is a master story teller, you will be ready for her next book when you finish this one. The book is written with a dual story line...one in Alabama as a modern story and the other in Pulaski, Wisconsin in the forties.
Sookie Poole discovers a BIG secret one day just as her life was beginning to slow down after marring off her three daughters and leaving her with a empty nest; although her mother, the formidable Lenore Simmons Krackenberry, who likes to run the entire town lives within walking distance of her, she allows her daughter to take care of the bills, mail, etc. And now the secret is out!!
Meanwhile, in Pulaski many years earlier, there is a filling station run by a Polish family with four girls who help run the filling station when their brother goes to war and their father has been hospitalized with TB. What fun and independence the girls are allowed with this adventure. Fritzi is the one who keeps the business going and delegates the jobs...of course business is booming with the females until gasoline is rationed....the war could not have been won without the female aviators who fly coast to coast in assisting the U.S. government although they were very late in being recognized. All the Jurdabralinski girls flew...had fun..heartaches..dangers..one became pregnant without a husband...one died in flight..one came home to marry...one organized the last reunion.
You will find many surprises, delights, tenderness, hilarious tales and a wonderful book. Get yurs from Amazon as I did...you will be so pleased you have this to look forward to. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel
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