SV: What about the rather colorful and lovely title, Standing in the Rainbow?
FF: The title did not come until after I finished the book. A friend told me of her true experience. It had happened to her and her family, how they wound up actually standing in a rainbow. I put the experience as it was told to me in the book as a letter to Dorothy from Mrs. Anne Carter (her real name). When I finished the book I realized that the time period I had been writing about was from 1946 to the early ’60s when we were, as a country certainly, standing in the rainbow. I suppose it is just another way of saying we were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.
SV: The Oatman Family Singers are a real treat. Given the obvious gifts of black gospel singers, the world of white gospel music is a new one to many of us. What got you interested?
FF: I was always very aware of gospel groups. I remember seeing a white group on television in Birmingham, Alabama, and they always seemed so happy. As a matter of fact there was one group I especially liked called The Happy Goodman Family. But then white gospel music has always been around in the South and the Midwest. Its roots go all the way back to the 1800s and started with the Shape Note Singers. It was sung in most rural Protestant churches and continues to this day. Many famous country, western, and rock ’n’ roll singers started with gospel. Elvis Presley was a huge fan of the Statesman Quartet and used to attend all their concerts. Some say this is where he got his wiggle. Gospel singers were moving and jumping around on stage long before Elvis. Now, thanks to Bill and Gloria Gather, the wonderful white gospel groups are bigger than ever and are appearing all over the country in concert and sell out everywhere they go. Not only in the United States but all over the world. I attended a Gather Gospel concert in Anaheim, California, and an entire basketball arena was packed to the rafters.
SV: This story opens in the 1940s. Do you feel especially nostalgic for that time? Do you believe that the end of World II produced in many people a childish optimism? A foolish euphoria that all would be well? Or do you find yourself yearning for an era with just a little more room for cheer, or with a little less carping and sniping, one with less fear of the future?
FF: When I started the book, 9/11 had not yet taken place and at the time one of the main reasons I wanted to write it was that I felt our country was going through a particularly negative period. Personally, I was saddened and depressed by the way the media, books, movies, TV, etc., were portraying only the dark side of our history. I also hated it that these dark and negative images were being seen all over the world. We seemed to have little appreciation for our country and how lucky we were to be Americans. It alarmed me that young people and the world really might not know that for a lot of people the experience of growing up in this country was a positive one. I do think it had a lot to do with the period after the war and the ’50s. It was a particularly wonderful time to be an American child; at least it was for me. I just wanted to remind myself and the world not to get so caught up in all the negative and forget the positive. And yes, I suppose I was nostalgic for that period of time, and I am so grateful I was lucky enough to have been young then, when the world seemed so much more positive and the future looked so much brighter. But having said that, I am also in awe of the present and the progress we are making in medicine and technology, etc. Not that the progress in technology is helping me much. I am still having trouble using a fax machine and I haven’t as yet mastered e-mail.
SV: Do you get many of your story lines or characters from the past? Are you rewriting the past to make it more like you wish it was, or do you try to set it down as it was, from your vantage point here and now, surrounded by rainbow?
FF: Yes, I do like to write about what I know and I only know the past. And as most of my stories are based on mostly true stories and my characters are combinations of people I know, I do tend to write about the past. I try to make it as real as I remember it, and in memory things always seem better or worse than they were, but I suspect I have a tendency to make them better.
SV: What chance does the present have against the rosy recall of those years back then? Or is there no competition between then and now?
FF: No, I don’t think so—every era is different. The future will be better in some aspects, worse in others.
SV: Did children’s books or teachers or librarians contribute to your storytelling urge?
FF: When I was very small my parents read Heidi to me and I had a wonderful sixth-grade teacher named Mrs. Sybil Underwood, who used to read us Nancy Drew stories. I am sure that helped. By the way, Mrs. Underwood still lives up the street and I had dinner with her just the other night. We both had shrimp. But I think going to work with my father, who was a motion picture machine operator, and seeing as many movies as I did as a child, really sparked my love of stories and my interest in people and their lives.
SV: Do you come from a family of storytellers? Was there one person who filled your memory with tales? Or was it part of the atmosphere, not confined to your family? Somehow, a reader might get the idea you did not grow up surrounded by glum, laconic types.
FF: My father was a great storyteller. As a matter of fact my mother used to get mad at him because he could tell such sad stories so convincingly that I would sob for hours. But he was extremely funny, as was my grandmother.
SV: You’ve had extensive experience in television, theater, and movies, yet there is a sense that you were meant to be writing books the whole time.
FF: I think you are right because I am the happiest when I am writing. I did not like acting that much and never knew why until I started writing. I was finally doing what I was supposed to be doing. I am one of those lucky people who got to have two careers and the best was saved for last.
SV: Several of the female characters in your novels start out strong and continue to be so, while others gradually emerge into their full strength. Do you feel that a characteristic of some notable women is to start slowly and then come on full tilt? Is there a touch of the meek inheriting the earth in that?