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Audiobook (abridged)5 hours
Standing in the Rainbow
Written by Fannie Flagg
Narrated by Fannie Flagg
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
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."
From the Hardcover edition.
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."
From the Hardcover edition.
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Reviews for Standing in the Rainbow
Rating: 3.881221752941176 out of 5 stars
4/5
442 ratings24 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This just happens to be one of my favorite books. Fannie Flagg begins a story set in 1940s Elmwood Springs, Missouri. The evolution of the characters is just as fascinating as the evolution of the town. Fannie takes the story all the way from the 1940s to the present day, leaving none of her characters behind. I give Fannie Flagg's "Standing In The Rainbow" five stars and a standing ovation.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5These books are a fun lightweight read but I feel like they lack a complete story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really enjoyable. Great characters.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I picked this up at a church thrift store on Roosevelt Island, NY. I liked the book - moved along with Flagg's signature multiple story lines following several sympathetic characters through several decades. This one followed a straight chronogical order unlike Fried Green Tomatoes. I prefered the present "framing story" of FGT and bouncing back and forth between present and past, but I don't think this book could have worked like that. Recommended.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I like books about quirky people, but just couldn't get into this one. I read over 50 pages and still didn't have a clue what it would be about.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ice cream and cake!Delicious!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fannie Flagg is the author of "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle StopCafe," and for those of you who aren't familiar with her work, I recommendit. I'd read "Tomatoes" and another of her titles, "Welcome to the World,Baby Girl," years ago, so when I ran across this one at the used book store,I snapped it up."Rainbow" is the story of a fictitious small town in southern Missouri thatcould have very well been the place where I grew up. The characters arewell defined and unique. This follows the story of Elmwood Springs, Mo,from 1946 to 2000, in all it's glorious local color. It's the story ofNeighbor Dorothy, a homemaker who broadcasts a daily radio program from herliving room, with her mother in law, Mother Smith, on the piano in thebackground, her husband, Doc, who is the town pharmacist, and their twochildren, Anna Lee, who must go through the throes of adolescence with herlife virtually on the air every day, and the boy, Bobby, who has onemisadventure after another. There is the young girl who lives next door,blind since birth, who sings like an angel, and the Oldman Family Gospelgroup headed by the flamboyant Minne Oldman, who weighs 250 pounds andattacks the piano with such gusto that it bounces. There is Minnie'spainfully shy and mousy daughter, Betty Raye, who was switched at birth inthe hospital and went home with the wrong family to live a life she wasnever designed to live, while the real Oldman offspring, the girl with heavyfeatures, stout body, and forthright personality goes off to become adebutante in the country club world. There's Norma and Macky, the highschool sweethearts who marry and become the backbone of the whole town.There's Norma's Aunt Elner, an eccentric and plain spoken old gal who owns asuccession of orange cats, all of them named Sonny. There's Hamm Sparks,the outgoing and gawky tractor salesman with political ambitions and his eyeon poor Betty Raye. There's the Goodnight Sisters, WWII veterans who make acareer out of traveling the country in a camping trailer, collectingpostcards, salt and pepper shakers, and friends along the way. And, finallythere is poor Tot, a woman who's life is one calamity after another, whoruns the town's only beauty parlor, putting her inept touch on the heads ofall the women in town because they have to keep her in business, after all.And Neighbor Dorothy tells the tale every morning at 9:00 am when womenthroughout the Midwest take a few minutes out of their busy days to sit andhave a cup of coffee with her, stubby pencils at the ready to jot downtoday's recipe.This is a real "feel good" book, a fun read and a sheer delight. It seemsso disjointed in the beginning chapters that I wondered how in the worldFannie was going to pull all those threads together, but she surely did, andcreated a town full of people I felt like I'd sat next to in school, stoodnext to at the grocery store, and cried with at the funeral home. I'drecommend this book for anybody who wants to revisit a simpler, happier timein American history and get back in touch with their small town roots. It'sa 5, but you probably guessed that already, didn't you?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A feel-good book, humorous and touching at the same time, in the tradition of Flagg's other winner, Fried Green Tomatoes....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Novel chronoically life and times in small town America
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"Standing in the Rainbow" brings back to life characters from Flagg's "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl," including Mrs. Neighbor Dorothy! The life of Neighbor Dorothy, and the people that surround her in the quiet town of Elmwood Springs are just as enchanting as those from Whistle Stop or Lost River, Alabama. There are many stories wrapped up in one in this novel, and while Flagg takes you through time, she also takes you through the lives of multiple families who -- like with the Threadgoodes -- are all connected. This is a town where everyone takes care of one another, and the events of each persons' life certainly affect those around them.What I loved about this book -- aside from the wonderful character development you expect from Flagg -- was the attention to detail in the first section, the 1940s. While the other years (1950s-1990s) read a bit faster, and their page numbers are shorter, the background you get in the 1940s pulls you in so closely to everything, that you are unable to close the cover until you find out what happens. A fabulous read. This book made me want to go back and pick-up "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl" another time!
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5My daoughter Laurie said she liked this 2002 book of fiction, and even though she said the same about A Redbird Christmas (by the same author) and I read it Nov 25, 2015, and was under impressed I read this book. It tells of a lady who does a women's talk show in a fictional town in Missouri--reminiscent of the homemaker radio program my mother listened to--especially Leanna Driftmeier on station KMA in the 1940's. It mimics that type of program and the broadcaster, Dorothy Smith, develops a following all over Missouri and a girl who lives in her home is wooed by a brash guy who marries her and then gets elected Governor of Missouri. It is all pretty fantastic and schmaltsy, but surprisingly involves the Gooernor having a mistress. The book covers the period from the 1940s to the 1990s and appeals to the people who listened avidty to such homemaker programs. I wa simpresed only as it masde me think fondly of my mother's interest in that type of radio program.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flagg is a great storyteller and her characters are so lifelike and likeable; their eccentricities make them all the more endearing. This book covers a time span of 1940s to 2000, and follows the family of Dorothy and Doc Smith, their friends and neighbors, in Elmwood Springs MO. It's a delightful read. I cried and laughed. Absolutely enjoyable.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Have I mentioned how much I love and want to live in Elmwood Springs? Well, I do. After reading Welcome to the World, Baby Girl, I couldn't wait to get to the next book in this series. So sweet, warm, welcoming...it's the book equivalent of warm apple pie. The town and its people grow and change from the '40's to the '90's, but pretty much stay the same. I kind of wish places like this still existed, except they'd all be Republicans, so then again, maybe not.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What a delicious book to read! So many wonderful characters living in Elmwood Springs, Missouri. Dorothy, who does a 1/2 hour radio show every day at 9:30 am, her children Anna Lee & Robert, her husband Doc (the local pharmacist) and all of the neighbors, friends, etc. Such a heart-warming book with good and bad. You are taken into decades of peoples lives and you fall in love with everything that they do in growing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another book about nothing... but in Fanny Flagg fashion!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5odd book. first book on cd for me. one narrator did all of the voices. amazing. took place in the forties. very touching, homespun, miwestern tale of the first woman radio show host who did a daily program out of her home.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I liked the first part was good but I did not like how the husband was dishonest and used his wife for his own gain.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent book on tape--great narrator. Not many books make you laugh and cry but this one did. Also covered a wide time frame--40's to 90s. Excellent!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I thought I wasn't gong to like this book but I did like it. It covered a town and family from the 1940s to the nineties. It was sad.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53.5 stars
I'm enjoying this series and coming back to this town. It's nice to see the town members at different points in their lives. Issues like sex, race, class, etc are always thrown in with a healthy dose of Southern small town fun. I felt like I already knew Neighbor Dorothy from how much she was talked about in the first book. It was nice to really get to know her. Some parts of the story are bittersweet. I'm glad to know all the characters more and sad to see them go. Norma and Macky Warren also seem to be at the heart of everything. I hope to see them more in future books. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5just started the book. was very good
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Nope. Not interested. I applied the Nancy Pearl rule and quit this one fairly early on. It's a story about a whole bunch of wacky characters in a small town in Missouri America - a state which has both Southern and Mid-western characteristics, apparently. Flagg doesn't seem to allow us to understand the characters in any great depth, rather she seems to be trying to show us what the community is like by describing a large number of people and how they interact. That's not an approach that I particularly like - I prefer to focus on a small number of people and see them in greater depth.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love Fannie Flagg. There are just no two ways about it. She could write her shopping list and I would read it. She writes about people I want to know and places I want to live. Her worlds are the way we want to the world to be, the world we think of when we think back nostalgically to “the way it used to be”.I read Standing in the Rainbow when it first came out and, of course, loved it. Then awhile back I was clicking through my libraries list of downloadable audio books and saw it listed and thought it was time to reread this wonderful story. Now, I’m just starting to really get into audio books. To be honest I used to think it was kind of cheating to listen to a book rather than read it. I was wrong and a snob and I’ve changed my evil ways because I’ve loved listening to audio books.I think what stands out for me the most with this particular Fannie Flagg story getting to see the passage of time and how Elmwood Springs and all it’s inhabitants change, yet stay the same. We follow the Smith family and all their friends and loved one from just after the end of WWII all the way through the new millennium. What I truly loved was how as much as the world changed the fundamental truths of love and family and friends stayed the same.What I had forgotten from the first time I read Standing in the Rainbow was just how many stories were told in this story. I remembered Neighbor Dorothy and her wonderful radio show. I remembered several stories of the residents of Elmwood Springs, the Goodnight Sisters and their adventures during and after the war, Beatrice-the little blind songbird and her longing to travel, and Dorothy’s children Bobby and Anna Lee and the trials and tribulations of their growing up. But, I had forgotten about the Oatman Family Singers and wonderful Minnie Oatman. I had forgotten about that Betty Raye Oatman came to stay with the Smiths and how that was to change her life forever. I had forgotten Hamm Sparks (I don’t know how I could have forgotten a name like that) going from tractor salesman to Governor of Missouri and the wonderful Cecil Figgs and the unexpected turn of events that gave him a whole new life. There is a heck of a lot of story in this book.This audio version was read my Kate Reading and she did a bang up job. There were a lot, and I mean a lot, of characters in this book. And almost all had dialog. Somehow she made them all very distinct and recognizable. I knew who was talking throughout the whole book. I’m in awe of the work these readers do. I listened to this every evening when I would go out to walk and I would get excited about the idea of listening the same way I did when I was little and knew my mom was coming to read me a story. It really is wonderful having someone read you a story when you’re all grown up. I don’t know what I was thinking poo-pooing audio books; I’m now an official fan.Oh, and when you hear the story that gives the book it’s title you will totally want to stand in a rainbow.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With a great deal of humor and poignancy, Fanny Flagg’s book, Standing in the Rainbow, tells the story of the residents of Elmwood Springs, Missouri. While focusing on small town America, the book was written with epic proportions as it spans half a century of the lives of ordinary people lived in extraordinary ways. A wonderful study of human nature, Standing in the Rainbow opens with Dorothy Smith, housewife and mother, who operates the town’s only radio station, WDOT. She touches not only the lives of her family, friends and neighbors, but those of her sizable listening audience. The book branches out to reveal the lives of the many characters in town – Poor Tot Wooten, Doc Smith, Betty Raye Oatman, Hamm Sparks, and so many more. Thoroughly readable, quick, and oh so much fun, Standing in the Rainbow not only reveals the many changes in American society in the past fifty years, but delights the reader with tales of quirky and loveable people, while looking into the human heart as well.