{"product_id":"fried-green-tomatoes-at-the-whistle-stop-cafe-isbn-9780425286555","title":"Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe","description":"Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, \u003ci\u003eFried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe \u003c\/i\u003eis a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eFried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A real novel and a good one [from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Happily for us, Fannie Flagg has preserved [the Threadgoodes] in a richly comic, poignant narrative that records the exuberance of their lives, the sadness of their departure.”\u003cb\u003e—Harper Lee\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Funny and macabre.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Courageous and wise.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHouston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“A real novel and a good one [from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Happily for us, Fannie Flagg has preserved [the Threadgoodes] in a richly comic, poignant narrative that records the exuberance of their lives, the sadness of their departure.”\u003cb\u003e—Harper Lee\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “This whole literary enterprise shines with honesty, gallantry, and love of perfect details that might otherwise be forgotten.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Funny and macabre.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Courageous and wise.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHouston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eFannie Flagg\u003c\/b\u003e’s career started in the fifth grade when she wrote, directed, and starred in her first play, titled \u003ci\u003eThe Whoopee Girls\u003c\/i\u003e, and she has not stopped since. At age nineteen she began writing and producing television specials, and later wrote for and appeared on \u003ci\u003eCandid Camera\u003c\/i\u003e. She then went on to distinguish herself as an actress and a writer in television, films, and the theater. She is the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eDaisy Fay and the Miracle Man;\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eFried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe;\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eWelcome to the World, Baby Girl!; Standing in the Rainbow; A Redbird Christmas; Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven; I Still Dream About You;\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion; \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Whole Town’s Talking\u003c\/i\u003e. Flagg’s script for the movie \u003ci\u003eFried Green Tomatoes\u003c\/i\u003e was nominated for an Academy Award and the Writers Guild of America Award and won the highly regarded Scripter Award for best screenplay of the year. Fannie Flagg is the winner of the Harper Lee Prize. She lives happily in California and Alabama.THE WEEMS WEEKLY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(WHISTLE STOP, ALABAMA'S WEEKLY BULLETIN)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJune 12, 1929\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCafe Opens\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Whistle Stop Cafe opened up last week, right next\u003cbr\u003edoor to me at the post office, and owners Idgie\u003cbr\u003eThreadgoode and Ruth Jamison said business has been\u003cbr\u003egood ever since. Idgie says that for people who know\u003cbr\u003eher not to worry about getting poisoned, she is not\u003cbr\u003ecooking. All the cooking is being done by two colored\u003cbr\u003ewomen, Sipsey and Onzell, and the barbecue is being\u003cbr\u003ecooked by Big George, who is Onzell's husband.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf there is anybody that has not been there yet, Idgie\u003cbr\u003esays that the breakfast hours are from 5:30-7:30, and you\u003cbr\u003ecan get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham and\u003cbr\u003ered-eye gravy, and coffee for 25 [cts.].\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor lunch and supper you can have: fried chicken;\u003cbr\u003epork chops and gravy; catfish; chicken and dumplings;\u003cbr\u003eor a barbecue plate; and your choice of three\u003cbr\u003evegetables, biscuits or cornbread, and your drink and\u003cbr\u003edessert--for 35 [cts.].\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said the vegetables are: creamed corn; fried green\u003cbr\u003etomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyed\u003cbr\u003epeas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd pie for dessert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy other half, Wilbur, and I ate there the other night,\u003cbr\u003eand it was so good he says he might not ever eat at home\u003cbr\u003eagain. Ha. Ha. I wish this were true. I spend all my time\u003cbr\u003ecooking for the big lug, and still can't keep him filled\u003cbr\u003eup.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the way, Idgie says that one of her hens laid an egg\u003cbr\u003ewith a ten-dollar bill in it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e... Dot Weems ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eROSE TERRACE NURSING HOME\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOLD MONTGOMERY HIGHWAY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDECEMBER 15, 1985\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvelyn Couch had come to Rose Terrace with her husband, Ed,\u003cbr\u003ewho was visiting his mother, Big Momma, a recent but reluctant\u003cbr\u003earrival. Evelyn had just escaped them both and had gone into the\u003cbr\u003evisitors' lounge in the back, where she could enjoy her candy bar in\u003cbr\u003epeace and quiet. But the moment she sat down, the old woman\u003cbr\u003ebeside her began to talk ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Now, you ask me the year somebody got married ... who they\u003cbr\u003emarried ... or what the bride's mother wore, and nine times out of ten\u003cbr\u003eI can tell you, but for the life of me, I cain't tell you when it was I\u003cbr\u003egot to be so old. It just sorta slipped up on me. The first time I\u003cbr\u003enoticed it was June of this year, when I was in the hospital for my\u003cbr\u003egallbladder, which they still have, or maybe they threw it out by\u003cbr\u003enow ... who knows. That heavyset nurse had just given me another\u003cbr\u003eone of those Fleet enemas they're so fond of over there when I\u003cbr\u003enoticed what they had on my arm. It was a white band that said:\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Cleo Threadgoode ... an eighty-six-year-old woman.\u003cbr\u003eImagine that!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"When I got back home, I told my friend Mrs. Otis, I guess the\u003cbr\u003eonly thing left for us to do is to sit around and get ready to croak....\u003cbr\u003eShe said she preferred the term pass over to the\u003cbr\u003eother side. Poor thing, I didn't have the heart to tell her that no\u003cbr\u003ematter what you call it, we're all gonna croak, just the same ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by,\u003cbr\u003ebut when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast\u003cbr\u003etrain to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure\u003cbr\u003edid on me. One day I was a little girl and the next I was a grown\u003cbr\u003ewoman, with bosoms and hair on my private parts. I missed the\u003cbr\u003ewhole thing. But then, I never was too smart in school or otherwise ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mrs. Otis and I are from Whistle Stop, a little town about ten\u003cbr\u003emiles from here, out by the railroad yards.... She's lived down the\u003cbr\u003estreet from me for the past thirty years or so, and after her husband\u003cbr\u003edied, her son and daughter-in-law had a fit for her to come and live\u003cbr\u003eat the nursing home, and they asked me to come with her. I told\u003cbr\u003ethem I'd stay with her for a while--she doesn't know it yet, but I'm\u003cbr\u003egoing back home just as soon as she gets settled in good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's not too bad out here. The other day, we all got Christmas\u003cbr\u003ecorsages to wear on our coats. Mine had little shiny red Christmas\u003cbr\u003eballs on it, and Mrs. Otis had a Santy Claus face on hers. But I was\u003cbr\u003esad to give up my kitty, though.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"They won't let you have one here, and I miss her. I've always\u003cbr\u003ehad a kitty or two, my whole life. I gave her to that little girl next\u003cbr\u003edoor, the one who's been watering my geraniums. I've got me four\u003cbr\u003ecement pots on the front porch, just full of geraniums.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My friend Mrs. Otis is only seventy-eight and real sweet, but\u003cbr\u003eshe's a nervous kind of person. I had my gallstones in a Mason jar\u003cbr\u003eby my bed, and she made me hide them. Said they made her\u003cbr\u003edepressed. Mrs. Otis is just a little bit of somethin', but as you can\u003cbr\u003esee, I'm a big woman. Big bones and all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But I never drove a car ... I've been stranded most all my life.\u003cbr\u003eAlways stayed close to home. Always had to wait for somebody to\u003cbr\u003ecome and carry me to the store or to the doctor or down to the\u003cbr\u003echurch. Years ago, you used to be able to take a trolley to\u003cbr\u003eBirmingham, but they stopped running a long time\u003cbr\u003eago. The only thing I'd do different if I could go back would be to\u003cbr\u003eget myself a driver's license.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You know, it's funny what you'll miss when you're away from\u003cbr\u003ehome. Now me, I miss the smell of coffee ... and bacon frying in the\u003cbr\u003emorning. You cain't smell anything they've got cooking out here,\u003cbr\u003eand you cain't get a thing that's fried. Everything here is boiled up,\u003cbr\u003ewith not a piece of salt on it! I wouldn't give you a plugged nickel\u003cbr\u003efor anything boiled, would you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old lady didn't wait for an answer \".... I used to love\u003cbr\u003emy crackers and buttermilk, or my buttermilk and cornbread,\u003cbr\u003ein the afternoon. I like to smash it all up in my glass and eat\u003cbr\u003eit with a spoon, but you cain't eat in public like you can at home\u003cbr\u003e... can you? ... And I miss wood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My house is nothing but just a little old railroad shack of a\u003cbr\u003ehouse, with a living room, bedroom, and a kitchen. But it's wood,\u003cbr\u003ewith pine walls inside. Just what I like. I don't like a plaster wall.\u003cbr\u003eThey seem ... oh, I don't know, kinda cold and stark-like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I brought a picture with me that I had at home, of a girl in a\u003cbr\u003eswing with a castle and pretty blue bubbles in the background, to\u003cbr\u003ehang in my room, but that nurse here said the girl was naked from\u003cbr\u003ethe waist up and not appropriate. You know, I've had that picture\u003cbr\u003efor fifty years and I never knew she was naked. If you ask me, I\u003cbr\u003edon't think the old men they've got here can see well enough to\u003cbr\u003enotice that she's bare-breasted. But, this is a Methodist home, so\u003cbr\u003eshe's in the closet with my gallstones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll be glad to get home.... Of course, my house is a mess. I\u003cbr\u003ehaven't been able to sweep for a while. I went out and threw my\u003cbr\u003ebroom at some old, noisy bluejays that were fighting and, wouldn't\u003cbr\u003eyou know it, my broom stuck up there in the tree. I've got to get\u003cbr\u003esomeone to get it down for me when I get back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Anyway, the other night, when Mrs. Otis's son took us home\u003cbr\u003efrom the Christmas tea they had at the church, he drove us over the\u003cbr\u003erailroad tracks, out by where the cafe used to be, and on up First\u003cbr\u003eStreet, right past the old Threadgoode place. Of course, most of the\u003cbr\u003ehouse is all boarded up and falling down now, but when we came\u003cbr\u003edown the street, the headlights hit the\u003cbr\u003ewindows in such a way that, just for a minute, that house looked to\u003cbr\u003eme just like it had so many of those nights, some seventy years\u003cbr\u003eago, all lit up and full of fun and noise. I could hear people\u003cbr\u003elaughing, and Essie Rue pounding away at the piano in the parlor;\u003cbr\u003e`Buffalo Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight' or `The Big Rock Candy\u003cbr\u003eMountain,' and I could almost see Idgie Threadgoode sitting in the\u003cbr\u003echinaberry tree, howling like a dog every time Essie Rue tried to\u003cbr\u003esing. She always said that Essie Rue could sing about as well as a\u003cbr\u003ecow could dance. I guess, driving by that house and me being so\u003cbr\u003ehomesick made me go back in my mind ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I remember it just like it was yesterday, but then I don't think\u003cbr\u003ethere's anything about the Threadgoode family I don't remember.\u003cbr\u003eGood Lord, I should, I've lived right next door to them from the day\u003cbr\u003eI was born, and I married one of the boys.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There were nine children, and three of the girls, Essie Rue and\u003cbr\u003ethe twins, were more or less my own age, so I was always over\u003cbr\u003ethere playing and having spend-the-night parties. My own mother\u003cbr\u003edied of consumption when I was four, and when my daddy died, up\u003cbr\u003ein Nashville, I just stayed on for good. I guess you might say the\u003cbr\u003espend-the-night party never ended...\"","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302034264293,"sku":"NP9780425286555","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780425286555.jpg?v=1742925963","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/fried-green-tomatoes-at-the-whistle-stop-cafe-isbn-9780425286555","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}