I read - and enjoyed - Fannie Flagg’s novel ‘Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe’, five years ago, after having seen the excellent film that’s based on the book. But I doubt if I’d have tried any other of her novels; indeed, I didn’t realise she had written other books until ‘The Whole Town’s Talking’ was put on the local reading group list for January 2021. I ordered it from AwesomeBooks and have just finished reading it.
The book starts well. It introduces Lordor Nordstrom, a hard-working farmer living in Missouri in the United States, towards the end of the 19th century. He would really like a wife, but hasn’t found anyone. So as he was born in Sweden, he decides to advertise for a Swedish wife. This is back in the era when mail order brides were not unusual, and when small towns in the USA were springing up all over the place.
A young woman called Katrina answers the advert. She lives in Chicago, and is working as a cleaner. But she prefers farms and countryside, so after quite a bit of heartfelt correspondence, and many doubts, she travels the long distance to the new town of Elmwood Springs to meet Lordor. And it works well - they like each other on sight, and quickly fall in love. There are quite a few neighbours who are introduced, most of them very friendly, and there’s a nice sense of community.
I very much enjoyed this part of the story, which takes quite a few of the very short chapters of the novel. Lordor is a man of great integrity, who not only runs his farm on humanitarian principles, but is generous with his money. And, thinking ahead, he decides to buy some land as a cemetery for people of the town, who can buy plots in advance. And he is elected as the first mayor of Elmwood Springs.
However this clearly isn’t sufficient of a plot for a 400 page novel, so the author introduces more and more people, and takes us faster and faster through the decades, and into the 21st century. And while I could relate to Katrina and somewhat to Lordor, they fade somewhat into the background as the new generations are born and grow up - often ten years in one leap as a new section of the book jumps ahead from one decade to another.
With most books, by the time I’m half-way through I feel hooked, longing to know what happens. But by the time I was in the middle of this book, I was feeling rather bewildered at the ever-increasing number of names, and wondering what the point was of a sideline to the story that follows the spirits of the people who are buried in the cemetery, meeting up again in a sort of reunion.
There’s a bit of drama towards the end of the book, when one of Lordor and Katrina’s descendants marries someone of dubious background - but we know immediately that he’s not who he seems, so it’s no surprise when a horrible crime is committed and made to look like an accident. But by that stage, I hardly cared. And then the final couple of chapters are even more bizarre, ending the book rather abruptly and unexpectedly.
Having said that, the writing is good, and there are places where I smiled at an apt phrase; the author certainly has a way with words, which I appreciated. It gives a picture of small-town America, too, and some of the changes that took place over the course of the 20th century. It would probably work well as a film, and I’d be interested to see it if one is ever made. But it’s a series of anecdotes rather than having a storyline of any kind, sometimes veering entirely away from Elmwood Springs for no apparent reason, or with just the faintest of connections.
For people who like this kind of slow-moving historical approach, with a mixture of individual storylines and a huge cast of characters, it’s a pleasant enough light read. But it’s not a novel that I would choose to read again.
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