Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, 416 pages

I am going to hazard a guess that this is Fannie Flagg's most famous book.  I have known about this book for years, along with the movie, but somehow had missed reading it and watching the movie.  It's always been somewhere on my "to be read" list and now I've got it done.

The story begins in 1980 with 48 year old Evelyn, meeting old Mrs. Threadgoode at a nursing home.  Evelyn is premenopausal and extremely unhappy.  Mrs. Threadgoode loves to talk and tells Evelyn all about Whistle Stop, a railroad town that mostly disappeared when the railroad pulled out.  With the help of Mrs. Threadgoode, Evelyn begins to find her way to happiness.

The story goes back to the 1900s through the 1960's telling the story of the Threadgoode family in Whistlestop and Idgie and Ruth in particular, who ran the Whistle Stop Cafe.  The story is full of southern charm and the book even includes recipes at the end, including you guessed it - Fried Green Tomatoes.