A Review of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fanny Flagg

I have seen the movie Fried Green Tomatoes multiple times and have enjoyed it quite a bit. So I decided to read the book because I was curious if I would enjoy it as well. I have read several other books by Ms. Flagg, and have enjoyed her writing style and stories of Southern life and the women who live there. This book was no exception.
The story takes place in two different time periods: the 1980's, with the story of Ninny Threadgoode, an 86-year-old living in a Birmingham, Alabama nursing home and her interactions with Evelyn Couch, a 48-year-old dissatisfied housewife. Cleo shares with Evelyn her memories of Ruth Jamison and Idgie Threadgoode (Ninny's sister-in-law), who lived in the 1920's-30's in Whistle Stop Alabama.
Both stories take their turns detailing the lives of the individual women, and the two separate friendships. Evelyn visits the nursing home with her husband to visit his mother, and she winds up spending a good deal of time with Ninny. Evelyn sees her as a nuisance in the beginning, but eventually comes to depend on Ninny for her rough charm and common sense. Evelyn is suffering from menopause-induced mid-life crisis. She feels useless and helpless, confused by the world around her and her lack of connection with it. Ninny needs a friend, and an ear to listen to her tales. And so these two women become erstwhile friends, much as the other two women whose tales are spun by Ninny, became friends earlier in the century.
It appears that Ruth and Idgie have a relationship that borders on romantic, as both act as though they love each other as more than just friends. Their friendship includes raising a child, one that Ruth has had by her husband, Frank Bennett, whom she left after being unable to endure any more of his beatings. He appears later in the story as well, and is part of the mystery that is present here.
This story is well-written and engaging, the characters and narrative the driving force. Neither story is more or less engaging than the other, and while I often get frustrated with books that switch back and forth because I am more invested in one story line than the other, that did not happen here. I was just as interested in what was going on with Ninny and Evelyn as I was with Idgie and Ruth. Both stories were both funny and heartbreaking, as Evelyn battles her feelings of helplessness by acting in ways that we have all imagined but never have actually done, for fear of the consequences. For example, when a young girl "steals" a parking space Evelyn was waiting for and then sasses Evelyn when she calls her on it, Evelyn decides to get even. She slams into the parked VW bug with her big boat of a car until it's no more than junk. Her character definitely is the most evolved throughout the story, and the one with the happiest ending. The others have their own endings, as such, some happier than others. In all, I enjoyed spending time in Alabama with Fanny Flagg's iconic characters. The book was just as wonderful as the movie.