Sweet yet Savory: The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg

Such a delight to pick up the characters from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and see what later lives Fannie Flagg created for them...and I can only hope there will be a movie version as wonderful as Fried Green Tomatoes, for which Flagg also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay.

Flagg moves back and forth in time, with flashbacks to the Depression era of the original book, and key points in time along the way, using the points of view of the various characters to tell the story as it evolves into the present. 

It's a very satisfying story, too, all neatly tied up just as you would like it to be. So refreshing, and just the thing to take you away from your troubles. Highly recommend to savor alongside a pot of your favorite tea and a slice or two of a freshly-baked pie to go with it.

Beyond Hello: Girls on the Line by Aimie K. Runyan

 A compelling, fast-paced work of historical fiction, well-researched, set during World War I. 

Philadelphian Ruby Wagner is in her early 20s and works as a switchboard operator for Pennsylvania Bell, over the objections of her socially conscious mother. The family is newly arrived to the elite suburbs of the Main Line, just beyond the city limits. Ruby is engaged to Nathaniel, the only son of a prestigious family, but while she is cares for him, she is not "in love" and is following the wishes of her parents, her mother in particular, who are pushing her to marry him. Her brother, Francis, is killed during a battle in France, where he was sent with his army battalion.

The Army recruits young women telephone operators to join the Signal Corps in Europe, in order to free up soldiers who are working those jobs when they could be fighting. After a series of skill and other tests, Ruby is selected and, despite her parents' disapproval, she departs for France.

She becomes a supervisor, and then head of the group. The work is challenging, potentially dangerous, and requires the operators to constantly learn new sets of code words to prevent the Germans from learning details of troop movements and offensives. 

Ruby becomes more confident and develops as a leader. She also meets Andrew Carrigan, a medic who aspires to become a doctor, and their fictional story becomes the backdrop to many of the actual events that transpire as the war comes to a close and the Germans surrender.

Author Aimie K. Runyan has done an excellent job of researching the real life story of the women who became known as the "Hello Girls", and of conditions confronting the working women of the era. Women did not yet have the vote, and any woman who joined the Army was denied the discharge money and medical benefits that men received when they left the service. This addressed in the Afterword and is a very significant story in itself. 

Mystical Doings: Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Another lyrical, imaginative, dare I say "magical", book from Alice Hoffman. Ms. Hoffman has a remarkable gift for description – when you read her depictions of 17th century Curacao, or Gravesend, Brooklyn, or onboard a pirate's sailing ship, you feel as though you have been transported – and for character development – her cast of characters are all so vivid, physically and emotionally, that they seem to be alive in the room with you as you read.

This book is a "prequel" to Hoffman's Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic, and covers the earliest story of the Owens family of sorceresses, and naturally, the subject matter lends itself to magical realism, which is a major component in many of Hoffman's works. It also draws on Jewish history, culture and traditions, which were so important to The Dovekeepers, The Marriage of Opposites and The World that We Knew.

Feminism is also an important element, as her characters chafe against the mores of the societies in which they live, where the roles for women are so strictly defined and the women who break them are harshly punished, as in the Salem Witch Trials which figure in this novel.

All together, Magic Lessons makes for compelling reading, and while it is not my absolute favorite of Hoffman's works, I consider it a 4-star book.

Mistress of Movie Fashion: Edith Head's Hollywood by Edith Head and Paddy Calistro

If you love the movies, anecdotes about Hollywood legends, fashion and costume design, you'll enjoy this book of reminisces by Edith Head, the renowned costume designer, with commentary on Head's life by Paddy Calistro.

Edith Head's career stretched over nearly six decades, from the 1920s into the 1970s. She participated in the costume design of hundreds of films, and was nominated for thirty-five Oscars, winning eight over the years. She worked with actors from Mae West, to Bette Davis (who wrote the forward to this book), Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, Robert Redford and others too numerous to mention. She was closely associated with Alfred Hitchcock and other premier directors.

This book was published in 1983, after her death in 1981 at the age of eighty-three. It includes multiple pages of black and white photos of Head, some of her most memorable costumes, plus images of some of her sketches.

I highly recommend it for all film buffs and those who want to escape to the glamorous world of mid-twentieth century Hollywood.

Lessons of History: As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner

 As Bright as Heaven is a family history novel set in Philadelphia just before and during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918, and in the following decade. 

The Brights, a family of loving parents, Pauline and Thomas, and their three daughters, Evelyn, Maggie and Willa, move from Quakertown (a farming-focused community about 40 miles to the north) to the city where Thomas will join his bachelor uncle Fred's successful funeral home and mortuary business and the family will move into his large, comfortable house in a prosperous neighborhood. The Brights have recently lost their infant son and brother, Henry, to a heart ailment and this is a chance for them to have a fresh start as they deal with their towering grief.

The Brights gradually adjust to their new life, Thomas learning the scientific and business aspects of the trade, the girls going to their new schools, and Pauline running the home and then taking on a role in the business too, where she is artful in preparing the hair and make-up of the deceased for viewings and burial.

Their lives become intertwined with the Sutcliff family, who have a father and son accounting business that they run from their home across the street. Jamie, the elder son, joins the army and is sent to France to fight. Charlie, the younger son, has a learning disability, but is physically strong and able to work for the Brights doing some heavy work at the funeral home.

Then, the flu makes its entrance, moving through the city, but spreading widely at a parade for Liberty Bonds for the war effort, where 200,000 people gathered closely together in the streets. The result is catastrophic for the entire city, particularly the poor living in rundown areas, and ultimately for the Brights...

The effect of the 1918 pandemic on Philadelphia was widely known, but was more or less forgotten as other historical events took place in the intervening century. Since I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and know of loss in my own family, I have some awareness.

This book was published in 2018, before our current pandemic. The 1918 pandemic is said to have killed 200 million people around the world. A hundred-plus years later, we find ourselves in the same situation. In this country, we should have known better, or rather, our government, which did know what might come, should have done better. Our infected and our deaths are mounting.

The Brights made it through, with losses, but their experiences changed them and everyone in that time period forever. How that unspools makes for compelling, fast-paced reading. 

The author clearly did a great deal of research on the 1918 pandemic, World War I and on Philadelphia. With my personal knowledge of Philadelphia and the area, I noticed an anomaly or two that weren't acknowledged by the author, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book. The characters were well-drawn and I liked the structure the author employed, moving from the points of view of Pauline, Evelyn, Maggie and Willa. The ends were nicely tied up, and the conclusion worked for me. 

Sobering Lessons: The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America were a time of great immigration, with many hundreds of thousands coming from eastern and southern Europe. They were not welcomed by all, including many at the very uppermost echelons of society in Boston and New York. Some turned to the pseudoscience of eugenics to support their prejudices. These proponents of eugenics and the bigotry it typified were generally influential men of great means, some of whom were "scientists" – in fact, many of them had advanced degrees and wrote scholarly books which were later debunked. The author, an acclaimed historian, explores them and their "work" in great detail, and with extensive documentation. 

Highly restrictive laws were passed in the House and Senate in the early 1920s to stop the flood of newcomers. Outrageous quota systems cut the former number of immigrants from Italy, the former Russian Empire, Poland, Greece and many other countries to a tiny fraction of what it once was, while favoring large numbers to immigrate from the British Isles, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and other northern European countries with so-called "Nordic" peoples. 

The lessons of that period, roughly one hundred years ago, are extremely relevant right now, in a time in which we are fighting pervasive racial inequity and other inequalities, brought to a head by the presidency of Donald Trump, which is thankfully nearing its end. America, as we all know, has a great deal of work to do to correct its path.

As the saying goes, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I might add that those who not read or study continue to encourage ignorance. That might sound obvious, but it is all too true.