The All Girls Filling Station Last Reunion by Jakki Clarke
Do you believe in luck? I certainly do. Once, while in Canada, I found not one but two four-leaf clovers on the same day and I saved them for years – although apparently not properly or very well, as they eventually wilted away to dust, but to say I was thrilled that day is like saying the sky is big. I also have an eagle-eye for lucky pennies and have taught my kids to do the same: always be on the lookout for luck.
And, while on vacation in Florida this past spring, I spotted a book in a random Dollar Store –- a place it certainly didn’t belong, as it was a New York Times Best Seller and written by the one and only Fannie Flagg (renowned actress, comedian, Academy Award-nominee, and author of Fried Green Tomatoes and The Whistle Stop Cafe). It was the only one and I snatched it, adding it to my cart of other cheap finds for the kids to play with in the pool, merrily skipping out of the store, feeling quite lucky.
But I didn’t read it right away — I kept on with the others I had brought with me on the trip and didn’t think of it again. That was back in April.
I didn’t even remember buying it till I came across it the other day while re-organizing some things in my office, and tah-dah, another lucky find!
So three days ago I started The All Girls Filling Station Last Reunion (Random House, 2013) and just finished it this afternoon. As a writer and lover of both non-fiction and fiction, it is reader heaven to me when the two collide, and Fannie Flagg does it in such spectacular style with this novel, I can’t believe my luck at having stumbled upon it, and in such an unlikely place.
Of course as with all her novels, the characters are impossible not to love. But in my humble opinion, the back of the book leaves out one of the most crucial and intriguing parts of the entire story: the WASPs. No, not the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants that usually spring to mind with that acronym; –- the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots of WWII. Flagg’s clearly extensive research on this subject is woven so effortlessly and seamlessly into such a delightfully quirky and engrossing tale about love of family, love of country, and love of self, and I was sad when it ended.
It was the best four quarters I’ve ever spent.
– Jakki