At age 59, Sookie Poole learns that she was adopted and everything she believes to be true about her ancestry is a lie. This book is about how Sookie deals with that information. Does she track down her birth mother? Does she confess her knowledge to the demanding woman who raised her? What does she tell her kids? With her trademark humor and insight, Fannie Flagg weaves Sookie's story with that of her birth mother, an aviatrix who served in the WASP's in World War II.
I'll admit up front: I'm a fan of Fannie Flagg's writing. I like her Southern voice, her quirky characters, and her down-to-earth stories. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion didn't disappoint. While being entertained by this delightful story, I also learned a little about the Women Airforce Service Pilots and their role in World War II and gained insight into the ways the folks "back home" supported the war effort.
Genre: Women's Fiction / Historical / Humor
Book Length: 347 Pages (hardback)
Amazon Link: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
Author Website: Fannie Flagg Books
First Chapter / First Paragraph: There's a brief prologue, but I'm taking my excerpt from the opening of Chapter One:
A Most Unusual Week
Point Clear, Alabama
Monday, June 6, 2005
76° and Sunny
Mrs. Earle Poole, Jr., better known to friends and family as Sookie, was driving home from the Birds-R-Us store out on Highway 98 with one ten-pound bag of sunflower seeds and one ten-pound bag of wild bird seed and not her usual weekly purchase for the past fifteen years of one twenty-pound bag of Pretty Boy Wild Bird Seed and Sunflower Mix. As she had explained to Mr. Nadleshaft, she was worried that the smaller birds were still not getting enough to eat. Every morning lately, the minute she filled her feeders, the larger, more aggressive blue jays would swoop in and scare the little birds all away.
Teaser (from Page 211):
Fritzi desperately wanted to pass this inspection, but something snapped. She gunned the engines and as soon as she got her altitude, she suddenly flipped the plane over and flew upside down while Miller, who was now suspended in midair and hanging on to his shoulder straps, screamed for dear life, "Turn over! Turn over! Goddamn it!" When she did, Fritzi did a barrel roll, shot straight up, and then did her famous death drop into fifteen spins straight down.
Synopsis:
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.
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First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by Bibliophile By The Sea. To participate, share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you're reading or thinking about reading soon.
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