Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (Paperback)

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• Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg

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Amazon.co.uk Review
With home-cooked, Southern literary flair, Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes) returns with Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! "Baby Girl", as she is lovingly referred to by her sweet, country cousins, is Dena Nordstrom, a tall, blonde, corn-fed girl who makes it big in Manhattan. Ms.Nordstrom is now the top TV anchorwoman in the city, beating out veteran journalists and making ungodly amounts of money. Although her life seems charmed, Dena is frazzled and miserable. She drinks uncontrollably, is a borderline compulsive liar, and is forced to undergo therapy because of her stress-induced ulcer. Her psychiatrist, Dr. O'Malley, falls madly in love with her, of course, and sends the blonde bombshell to a close colleague, Dr. Diggers. Living up to her name, Diggers shovels up a mountain of dysfunction and forces Dena to face her mysterious past; all the while the good doctor reports back to broken- hearted O'Malley about her patient's progress. Meanwhile, back at the station, Ms. Nordstrom has made friends and enemies in very high places. Her greatest ally is Howard Kingsley, the Cronkitesque reporter who wields power with more ease than most seasoned politicos: "He closed the door and handed the driver a 10 dollar bill. 'Take this young lady where she wants to go for me, will you? And be careful, she's valuable property'". It's a good thing she has friends like that, because her boss, Ira Wallace, makes George Costanza from Seinfeld look like a scrupulous saint. When Wallace hires a nasty but effective mole by the name of Sidney Capello to dig up garbage on celebrities, Nordstrom has a head-on collision with his sense of ethics (or lack thereof) and gets Capello canned. Or so she thinks. Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! is very much like its star, Dena Nordstrom: pretty, scattered, confused, and sometimes interesting. It's a long ride from the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Review
Aggressively successful New York television interviewer Dena Nordstrom is an emotional mess. There is a dark mystery in her past that even psychiatrists cannot uncover - instead one falls in love with his difficult patient, and his increasingly outrageous attempts to attract her provide some of the most hilarious episodes in the book. By the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, this is a warm, poignant and funny tale, with a sinister undercurrent of racial prejudice and hypocrisy. (Kirkus UK)

The author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987, etc.) returns with another engaging paean to the joys of down-home southern life. Gorgeous, ambitious Dena Nordstrom is doing very well in 1970s Manhattan. She's the popular star of a network morning show, poised to rise as the ratings-driven TV industry promotes appealing women to make palatable the increasingly nasty interviews that are turning the news into scandalmongering "entertainment." Dena barely remembers Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where she spent four happy years before her mysterious mother abruptly left town and embarked on a decade of wandering before vanishing from 15-year-old Dena's life altogether in 1959. But the folks back in Elmwood Springs remember Baby Girl, daughter of a local boy killed in WWII, and Flagg has some obvious but effective fun with the contrast between the townspeople's homey-to-the-verge-of-caricature existence and Dena's high-powered urban-professional lifestyle. Of course, she's not really happy: she drinks too much and has bleeding ulcers that send her, acting reluctantly on doctor's orders, to a handsome psychiatrist (who falls in love with her at first sight, natch) and then back to Elmwood Springs to recuperate from overwork. Readers may share Dena's initial reaction to the relentlessly folksy locals ("Get me out of here," she commands her agent), but the New York cast of characters is just as cliched: noble, Walter Cronkite-like anchorman; sleazy network executive; sleazier "researcher"/dirt-digger. The author does, however, know how to spin a rattling good yarn. Even those who gag at the way she holds up "Neighbor Dorothy" and her hokey 1940s radio show as the epitome of small-town goodness will probably find themselves flipping pages rapidly to discover what happened to Dena's mother. The denouement has a clever twist, and if the happy ending is not exactly a surprise, it taps into enough classic American fantasies about getting out of the rat race to be quite moving. Shamelessly corny - and extremely enjoyable. (Kirkus Reviews)

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First Sentence
Everyone in Elmwood Springs and thereabouts remembers the day they put the radio tower in Neighbor Dorothy's backyard, and how excited they were that night when they first saw the bright red bulb on top of the tower, glowing like a cherry-red Christmas light way up in the black Missouri sky. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
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18 Reviews 5 star:  (12) 4 star:  (5) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.6 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   6 of 6 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Great follow-up, 29 Nov 2007 By  James Monroe (Lincolnshire) - See all my reviews After Flagg's smash hit FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, I honestly didn't think she could do any better. I was wrong. WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY GIRL is a gem. As someone said, "This is a long way from Whistle Stop Cafe," and the reason is that it's set in Manhattan. I was so reminded more than once of the novel BARK OF THE DOGWOOD with its themes of NY corruption vs small town ethics. Basically, Flagg's WELCOME is a bit of a nightmare for our young and beautiful protagonist, Dena Nordstrom (a name conjured up to bring memories of the department store?) and what that young lady goes through at the hands of the ethics-lacking bosses and journalists. One has to wonder how much of this Flagg experienced herself since she's been around for a while and probably has suffered at the hands of others (who hasn't?). Our main character is put through the mill and ends up in therapy where she's once more taken advantage of. There doesn't seem to be an end to what she has to put up with, but as always, Flagg finds the silver lining. Highly recommended book, along with her FRIED GREEN TOMATOES. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   6 of 7 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A tremendously heart warming read, 19 Nov 2000 By  Mrs. K. A. Wheatley "katywheatley" (Leicester, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)       One of the things I like best about Flagg is that she can be heart breakingly sentimental without losing her great wit and charm. This book touched my heart as well as making me laugh out loud. She has a deft touch for characterisation. You care so much for everyone she introduces into her work that it is a physical wrench when it's time to leave on the last page. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Touching, sentimental and overall feel-good, 28 Nov 2000 By A Customer If you are in the mood for warm, fuzzy and romantic, this is the book for you. It's an easy read due to the structure and writing style, but that does not make Baby Girl dull or uninspiring. The plot thickens and turns and pulls you in and the twist at the end was a genuine surprise - slightly implausible to my mind, but such a delightful book to read that plausible wasn't top of my list anyway! Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 18 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL! This is simply an exceptionally good novel. So much so that I was moved to write this review. If anything, it is better than 'Fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe'. Read more Published 10 months ago by E and Z 5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful I could picture Elmwood Springs and all the characters perfectly because of the wonderful writing. My first Fannie Flagg novel and it won't be my last. Read more Published 24 months ago by b.lops 4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to MY world, Fannie Flagg! When i started reading this book i thought it was a bit more 'fluffy' than Fried Green tomatoes...but how wrong I was. Read more Published on 12 Sep 2006 by Abi 5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the World Baby Girl! Fannie Flagg excels in creating marvellous characters, and all her novels are testimony to this. What makes "Baby Girl" such a storming book is the mix of small-town, wholesome... Read more Published on 6 Jan 2003 by rmc 5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this! I have just finished reading Welcome to the World Baby Girl and am finding it hard to "let go". Read more Published on 17 Jul 2000 5.0 out of 5 stars Unmissable I am a huge fan of Fannie Flagg . The characters come to life so vividly that I felt I was really there and the story lives on long after you have finished reading. Read more Published on 26 Jun 2000 by kathy.symes@talk21.com 5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant A cast of funny and wonderfully drawn characters, a story both amusing and touching, and a typically evocative setting from Fannie Flagg. Published on 10 Jun 2000 5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant novel which restores your faith and hope in life This book contains a fantastic array of believable characters who are truly enchanting as they make their way through life. Read more Published on 4 Jan 2000 by fbartlett@fitchibca.com 5.0 out of 5 stars As important as 'Catcher in the Rye' and more touching. I picked this book up as the third book in a 3 for 2 deal at a local bookstore not knowing much about it. Read more Published on 4 Dec 1999 4.0 out of 5 stars It caught me unaware, with a truly original twist Beyond the Waltonesque opening is a wonderful tale of a woman's struggle to discover who she really is. Read more Published on 15 Nov 1999 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews › See all 18 customer reviews...

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