I Still Dream About You
Fannie Flagg

Random House Publishers
November 2010 / ISBN 978-0-679-60404-4
Literature
Amazon

Reviewed by Cyndi Wright

For fans of Fannie Flagg like myself, the dry spell is over with the release of her new book I Still Dream About You.

Though not quite as compelling as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café or as touching as Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (my favorite book of all time), regardless, Flagg still takes her reader on an amazing, sometimes painful, but also riotous, journey through the lives of several women in Birmingham, Alabama. As always, Flagg’s characters and situations are so memorable that readers will find themselves chuckling out loud.

The heroine is Maggie Fortenberry, a former Miss Alabama turned real estate agent. Although Maggie dedicates her life to upholding the standards of her former crown and epitomizes southern women grace , she has decided to end her life and, as with everything else in her life, has planned the suicide down to the last perfect detail. Fortunately, through hilarious and unplanned events, she is thwarted each time the big day arrives.

Her best friend is Brenda, an African-American agent in their small real estate office, who fights obesity and has a drive to become the first black, female mayor of Birmingham. She reconciles the love of her hometown with the memory of her sister being knocked down by a vicious racist mob during the civil rights struggle that centered in Birmingham.

Together, and inspired by their admiration for a mentor who died early, these two make their way through a high-end, but declining real estate market. When a plum property lands in their laps, a mystery found on the property turns Maggie into a sleuth and what she finds out about a town founder makes her realize that everybody has a secret – and maybe the secrets she has been harboring are not really all that bad.

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