Return to Whistle Stop–Sage & Savvy Voices

About four books ago, I announced—with a great flourish—that I’d retired and was no longer writing books. Well, that didn’t work, did it?

It never dawned on me that I would be going back to Whistle Stop, Alabama, and the world of Fried Green Tomatoes at this age, but somehow it happened. Over the many years since the book came out in 1987 and the movie followed in 1991, lots of people who loved the story suggested I write a sequel. But I felt so lucky with the way everything turned out that I thought I should just leave the story alone.

Then when NBC decided a few years ago to go ahead with a movie sequel, my agent suggested I write my own sequel as a book while we were all waiting for the film to happen.

“Well, I guess I could do that,” I said. So I sat down with the vision of the movie in my head and found myself wondering what had happened to that town and to all those people who lived there. In particular, I thought about what might have happened to that little boy, Ruth’s son, who lost his arm on the railroad tracks. And then I realized, Oh, that’s what this book is about—what happened to Bud. And that’s how I came to write The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop (Random House, 2020).

Very few people now stay in the same town their whole lives; we scatter to the winds. All the people from Whistle Stop went on their own way because the town closed down, and then something happens. Is it a miracle? I don’t know, but in the new book, we see that people started coming back and a new community is forming. I think that’s what we all want, after all: We want community. It can’t always be the same old community that we had, but we can always start a new one. And that’s what the book is about, the importance of community.

We’re learning more and more that community is good for you, just like vegetables. The people who live the longest are the ones who have a very healthy community. And the pandemic taught us not to ever take that for granted, even the simple act of being with people, hugging them, being among friends, and seeing their faces. That is the good that has come out of the pandemic, the understanding of what is really important. I sure hope that we continue to be grateful for our communities and the people in them.

Life is fantastic, and there’s so much good in the world. One of the reasons I write is to remind people of that. We often hear how terrible people are, but that’s not how I feel. That’s not my experience. I think people are wonderful. True, many wonderful people don’t get press or public recognition, but that is exactly why I write about what they call “ordinary people.” I don’t think they’re ordinary; I think they’re heroes and heroines. They are the people who get up every day, go to work, pay their taxes, take care of their sick children—and they don’t get attention or awards or big salaries. These are the folks who touch my heart the most.

“I think God gave us a sense of humor because we’ve got to find a release somehow in the midst of everything else that’s going on in our lives.”

I get a lot of inspiration from people, or maybe I just get the biggest kick out of them—particularly those who don’t know they’re funny. There is a particular brand of American humor that I find so cute; it’s the kind you often see in small-town newspapers, especially in the social columns. You know, “Mrs. So-and-So hit bingo last night and was taken to the hospital an hour later.” Well, that kind of thing just throws me on the floor laughing, so I read a lot of papers like that to get ideas.

I particularly love funny names, and when I hear one I will write it down, and then all of a sudden that character starts to live. The other day I read about somebody named Amber Plaster and then another person named Nubbin Chameless. Well, that just cracked me up. I still think it’s hilarious. And then, of course, there’s Fannie Flagg. I’ve got the silliest name of all. I can’t make this stuff up!

There’s nothing better than a good laugh. I think God gave us a sense of humor because we’ve got to find a release somehow in the midst of everything else that’s going on in our lives. It’s such a benefit for our mental health to be able to look at the world and at the mad stuff happening all around us and realize that it’s so crazy you just have to laugh. Everybody gets so serious about this and that, and sometimes it just helps to say to yourself, Oh, honey, lighten up!

That’s why when I returned to writing about Whistle Stop, I knew I’d have to get out of my own way and just let the story come through. I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to do that with my other books, and fortunately I was able to do it again with this new one.

When you get out of your own way and let Spirit speak through you—not just with writing but with life in general—you can’t go wrong. When I was younger, I used to be so worried about how I looked or whether I’d said the right thing. But with age (not to mention getting knocked about a bit by life), you realize that you’re enough just the way you are. It’s such a relief! All you ever have to do is tell the truth and be yourself because as I’ve found out through trial and error, it’s not even about us. It’s about what the Universe wants us to do. Like when I thought I’d retired from writing, God kept saying, “No, sister, you’ve got another book. Sit down and do it.”

I wish I’d known about all that when I was younger—which brings me to why I credit my happiness in life to Unity. My father was an atheist and was very proud of it because he thought that made him very intelligent. So I grew up not having a religion, and I always felt like I was floundering, wanting to believe in something but not quite sure what that was. When I went to New York right out of high school, I felt very overwhelmed. A friend handed me Daily Word, and ever since, unless I was knocked out cold, I have not missed a day of reading it.

Now, whenever I am struggling, I go right to my Daily Word. It’s gotten me through life, and I am sure there are so many other people out there who feel the same way. I’m so grateful to Unity for that. I also call the Silent Unity® 24-hour prayer line if I need prayer, and it’s never let me down. I’ve even had the privilege of going to Unity Village to attend a retreat, and it was one of the best times of my life.

This article was adapted from a November 2020 interview that Fannie Flagg gave to Rev. Temple Hayes on the Unity Online Radio show The Intentional Spirit … Seeing and Being, airing Wednesdays at 1 p.m. (CT) on unityonlineradio.org.