Standing in the Rainbow

The time: 1946-2000. The Place: Elmwood Springs, Missouri. Right in the middle of everywhere, which could be anywhere. World War II has ended and the joyous transitions to peace are being - mostly - embraced. At the heart of the novel is the inimitable Neighbour Dorothy, broadcasting daily, with Mother Smith on the organ, from her front room, via the tower in her backyard, to an eager, and at times lonely, audience across the state - who often hear more than her own family would like about the antics of wayward son Bobby and adolescent Anna Lee. And meet the Oatman Family, white Southern Gospel Singers at a pharmaceutical convention in Memphis, where they blow the place away; timid, little Betty Raye Oatman who can’t stand the life and ends up in a Governor’s mansion; Hamm Sparks, a super-salesman everyone likes and trusts, who soon sells all of Missouri; and the phenomena known as the Sunset Club, Dinner on the Ground and the Funeral King.; not to mention the changing face of small-town America. Humour and poignancy, wit and nostalgia, Fannie Flagg mixes the cocktail of small-town American life to perfection.