A Red Bird Christmas and Peter Reinhardt’s Cornbread

Confession: I had never read Fannie Flagg till Simran picked her up for our book club’s second anniversary. I had seen the movie Fried Green Tomatoes based on her book by the same name but had no idea at the time that it was based on Flagg’s book. The movie won an academy award nomination for best screenplay in 1991, so I can imagine how good the book must be.

Flagg is an accomplished writer who sets her book in the small Southern town of Lost River, population: 80. Think RK Narayan's Malgudi, except set in a small southern town along a meandering river with fabulous sunsets. Instead of the dusty roads of Malgudi, imagine pretty little bungalows with neatly tended lawns and streets lined with trees so old they form a canopy overhead. The weather is pleasant even in the peak of winter and the flora and fauna are bountiful.

The residents are friendly and welcome the arrival of an elderly bachelor, as an opportunity to get one of the seven unhitched (three single, four widows) women hitched. Oswald T Campbell, named after a can of soup he was found with on the steps of the orphanage, is a retired army man with emphysema, a limited pension and an even limited time left to live. He comes to the little town to recuperate and falls in love with the slow pace of the town, its residents and by the end of it not only gets a new lease on life but a new bride.

Flagg weaves a beautiful tapestry of friendship between Campbell, an abandoned six year old girl Patsy, a flightless redbird named Jack who lives in the town’s only store, owned by Roy. She embroiders the details of the town’s secret society that goes by the name the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society and weaves in the history of Roy’s broken love affair with his childhood sweetheart with the skill and artistry of one of Oswald’s nature paintings.