Q: Why is it that when writers from the South get going, they make people from everywhere else seem taciturn?
FF: I think the one thing people forget is that the South has an entirely different culture than most of the country. Southerners are as different in the way they use the language as Italians are from Germans and Swedes. What tends to confuse people is that we are all speaking the same language, but we use it in a different way. Put a woman from the South and a woman from Maine in the same room and they would have a hard time, not because of the language but because of the usage. A Southerner may take an hour to answer a question, whereas the lady from Maine might just answer yes or no.
Q: I suppose it’s inevitable that I ask you how you write—when and where, with what instruments, by day or by night. Are you disciplined, doing so many words a day? Or are you nicely messy, and write when you simply can’t not write, when it won’t let you go? Virginia Woolf famously wrote of A Room of One’s Own. Do you have one?
FF: Oh dear. I am dyslexic and have A.D.D.; therefore I am extremely limited. I write on a typewriter. I am hopelessly disorganized. My room looks like an invasion has taken place. I write in the morning and usually for at least four or five hours a day, if not more … never less. If one day I find that I cannot write, I get up and go out and roam antique stores, drive, walk, etc. I have one room away from the rest of the house so I can’t hear phones, faxes, mailmen, Fed Ex deliveries. I turn on a fan to help drown out any noise.
Q: Have you ever been accused of writing about a specific person, one who exists in “real life?” Anyone ever say “That’s my Aunt Evelyn,” or something like that? And what is real life?
FF: No, not really. Usually my characters are based on a combination of four or five different people I have met or observed or heard about. Idgie Threadgoode was based somewhat on my great Aunt Bess Fortenberry who owned a cafe by the railroad tracks but the events were fiction.
What is real life? I have come to believe that real life is what we want it to be. How we choose to look at life and interpret it. For me I choose to see it as I want it to be. Not that I do not see the terrible things; I do. But I find that if I hear on the news that ten people have been murdered and maybe twenty-five people hit in the head and robbed, I try to remember that on the same day there were millions of people who did not murder or rob anyone. I look for the best in people and I see it all the time. My heroes are the people, teachers, nurses, etc. who get up and go to work everyday when they would rather not. These are the ones who never complain and get the least attention.
Q: Which character in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe came to you first? Where did the novel begin for you?
FF: Strangely enough, the first character in Fried Green Tomatoes was the cafe, and the town. I think a place can be as much a character in a novel as the people.
The novel began for me when I was handed a shoebox full of little things like a menu, a picture, a lock of hair, an old Easter card, etc. This was all that was left of the sixty-nine years of my Aunt Bess, who had been such a vital and loving, giving person while she had been alive. I wanted to recreate a life from that shoebox.
Reading Group Questions
and Topics for Discussion
1. This novel has a very complex structure alternating between the past and the present and the point of view of a whole host of different characters. Did this narrative format work for you? Were there particular narrators you found more compelling than others and why?
2. Idgie and Ruth’s friendship is truly a case of opposites attract. Why is the scene where Idgie reveals her bee charming skills to Ruth so pivotal to the story of their relationship and in understanding what drew them together despite their differences?
3. Jasper Peavey’s grandson is embarrassed by his grandfather’s behavior toward white people. Discuss generational conflict and how life changed or did not change across the generations in both the Peavey and Threadgoode families.
4. This novel has a great deal to say about race relations in the South. How did the black and white communities interact in this story both within and beyond the borders of Whistle Stop? Were Idgie and Ruth’s egalitarian views on race typical?
5. What is Artis Peavey’s secret? Do you think the events he witnessed as a child had an impact upon his later life? How does race have an impact upon the lives of all the Peavey children—Jasper, Artis, Willie Boy, Naughty Bird? What options were available to them and what choices did they make and why? What do you think of the revenge that Artis takes on the man who murdered his brother?
6. Do you think the color of Jasper and Artis’ skin—Jasper being very light-skinned and Artis being very dark-skinned—made a difference in their approach to life? What does the light-skinned Clarissa’s encounter with her dark-skinned Uncle Artis say about life as a black Southerner?
7. How do you feel about a character like Grady Kilgore, Whistle Stop sheriff, member of the Ku Klux Klan, and friend to Idgie and Ruth at the same time?
8. Eva Bates is a woman you might call sexually liberated before her time. What role does she play in Idgie’s life? In Stump’s? What are Ruth’s feelings toward Eva?
9. We never learn where Ninny came from or how she came to be adopted by the Threadgoodes, only that they took her in and treated her like a member of the family. This is only one example in a novel full of non-traditional families. What are some other examples of familial bonds that do not look like a traditional nuclear family? How does this author challenge and expand our understanding of the meaning and structure of family?
10. What drives Idgie to masquerade as Railroad Bill? What role did the economic devastation of the Great Depression play in the lives of Idgie, Ruth, Smokey, and everyone in Whistle Stop?
11. Why did Ruth leave Idgie and marry Frank? What made her finally leave him?
12. Did the identity of Frank Bennett’s killer surprise you? What drove her to do what she did? Why was Idgie prepared to take the blame?
13. What do Dot Weems’ weekly dispatches tell us about the nature of life in a small town? Were you sorry to see Whistle Stop fade away? Why has this been the fate of so many small towns in America?
14. How does Idgie help Stump overcome having lost his arm?
15. How did Evelyn’s relationship with Ninny Threadgoode change her life? What did she learn from Mrs. Threadgoode? And how did Evelyn help her friend?
16. What did Ninny Threadgoode’s stories offer Evelyn? Why do you think Evelyn is so drawn to this woman and her stories?
17. Ninny tells Evelyn that her memories are all she has left. Discuss the importance of memory and storytelling in this novel.
18. Why and how was Evelyn able to finally overcome her revenge fantasies, send Towanda packing and make important changes in her life? What steps did she take that ensured these changes would be for good and not a temporary thing?
19. How does this story explore the process of aging? How do we die with dignity when all those we loved and who loved us are gone? How does Ninny manage?
20. Does the Whistle Stop Cafe sound like a restaurant you would like to frequent?
21. Is domestic violence viewed differently today than it was in Ruth’s time? Do you see any changes in Ruth’s character after she leaves her abusive marriage?
22. Which character would you be most interested in meeting and why?