Author(s): Fannie Flagg

World fiction

Combining her trademark charm with unabashed emotion and side-splitting hilarity, Fannie Flagg takes readers back to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here?

Life is the strangest thing. One minute, Mrs Elner Shimfissle is up in her tree, picking figs to make jam, and the next thing she knows, she is off on an adventure she never dreamed of, running into people she never in a million years expected to meet, including Neighbor Dorothy (from Standing in the Rainbow) and her husband in the unlikeliest of places.
Meanwhile, back home, Elner's nervous, high-strung niece Norma faints and ends up in bed with a cold towel on her head; Elner's neighbor Verbena rushes immediately to the Bible; her truck driver friend, Luther Griggs, runs his eighteen-wheeler into a ditch - and the entire town is thrown out of kilter and left wondering, "What is life all about, anyway?"
Except for Tot Whooten, who owns Tot's Tell It Like It Is Beauty Shop. Her main concern is that the end of the world might come before she can collect her social security.