Standing in the Rainbow cover art

Standing in the Rainbow

A Novel

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Standing in the Rainbow

By: Fannie Flagg
Narrated by: Fannie Flagg
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About this listen

 Good news! Fannie’s back in town—and the town is among the leading characters in her new novel.

Along with Neighbor Dorothy, the lady with the smile in her voice, whose daily radio broadcasts keep us delightfully informed on all the local news, we also meet Bobby, her ten-year-old son, destined to live a thousand lives, most of them in his imagination; Norma and Macky Warren and their ninety-eight-year-old Aunt Elner; the oddly sexy and charismatic Hamm Sparks, who starts off in life as a tractor salesman and ends up selling himself to the whole state and almost the entire country; and the two women who love him as differently as night and day. Then there is Tot Whooten, the beautician whose luck is as bad as her hairdressing skills; Beatrice Woods, the Little Blind Songbird; Cecil Figgs, the Funeral King; and the fabulous Minnie Oatman, lead vocalist of the Oatman Family Gospel Singers.

The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future.

Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."©2002 Willina Lane Productions Inc.; (P)2002 Random House Inc., Random House Audio, a Division of Random House Inc. Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Women's Fiction Feel-Good

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Critic reviews

Praise for Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

“A real novel and a good one [from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.”—The New York Times

“Courageous and wise.”—Houston Chronicle
“Try to stop laughing.”—Liz Smith
“It’s very good, in fact, just wonderful.”—Los Angeles Times
Praise for Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

“Another winner . . . an assortment of zany, lovable, and intriguing characters.”—Chattanooga Free Press

“A well-choreographed story of loyalty and survival that zigzags deftly across the postwar years . . . Flagg can cook up memorable women from the most down-to-earth ingredients.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Flagg gives popular fiction a good name. . . . Let others pretend to literary greatness. Fannie goes for literary goodness--and achieves it.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
All stars
Most relevant
I absolutely love Fannie Flagg's books. This one is no exception. The stories make you feel at home and warm at heart <3

I loved it

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Loved it almost as much as fried green tomatoes. Charming and characters and wonderfully read by the author

Wonderful feel good novel

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Loved this book, started slowly but weaved its way in and just felt real and from a gentler time and place.

Standing in the Rainbow

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I think it is impossible to read or hear this book read without feeling better about life; and Fannie Flagg's reading brings out the very best - things to smile and laugh at, things to think about and things to make you feel sad. But throughout, the atmosphere of a mid-west small-town community, which may never have existed except in American mythology, in which people are accepted and cared for, no matter who they are or what their excentricities, just makes you wish you had been there.
Please may we have more of Fannie Flagg's works on Audible - perhaps 'Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlstop Cafe' or 'Welcome To The World Baby Girl' (Which also features Neighbour Dorothy, her family and neighbours).

The book of gold at the end of the rainbow

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No idea why it has this title, or jacket image as they don't seem to relate to this extraordinary book (loosely based around two Missouri families) at all. If you liked Steel Magnolias or enjoy Garrison Keillor or James Wicox you will love this - it transports you to a time and place that is utterly eccentric and comical and yet unsentimentally moving. Just so quirky and unusual, uplifting, hilarious, lyrical - why hasn't it been made into a film like Fried Green Tomatoes?

Beautifully read by the author

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