Another first
I mentioned in my last blog post about The spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson, that it was a multiple award winner. One of the more prestigious prizes that it won was the Betty Trask prize for a first novel. Fergusson is charmingly modest about his first novel. The book I read immediately after that was also (unknown to me at the time) a first novel, this time by the well known American novelist, Fannie Flagg (winner of an Oscar for the adaptation of her book, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe). Daisy Fay and the miracle man (first published as Coming attractions) was Fannie Flagg's first book.
In 1978 Flagg, who was then working primarily as an actress (she had a small role in Grease!), attended a writer's conference, and rather to her own surprise won a writing contest - a collection of journal entries in the hand of a fictional 11 year old girl, badly spelled to cover Flagg's own issues with spelling (she has a form of dyslexia). She was then approached by a publisher who asked her if she would like to expand the diary entries into a novel. As Flagg recalls "I just burst into tears and said 'I can't write a novel. I can't spell. I can't diagram a sentence.' He took my hand and said the most wonderful thing I've ever heard. He said, 'Oh, honey, what do you think editors are for?'"
And so her first novel Daisy Fay and the miracle man was born. Daisy Fay tells the story of young Daisy Fay Harper, a girl growing up in Mississippi in the 1950's. It's told in Daisy Fay's own words through a series of diary entries. Daisy Fay lives with her dotty family - her father drinks and has aspirations to be a taxidermist when he's not managing the film projector at the local movie theatre. Daisy Fay's is a wonderful voice, one of the best children's voices to come out of America since Scout Finch. Daisy Fay is a rather more worldly, yet still innocent, voice, but they are clearly kindred spirits.
It is a novel of its period. It's hard (probably impossible) to write about Mississippi in the 1950's without reflecting on the problems of that period. Not least the racism, and some attitudes towards women. Daisy Fay may have grown up with these attitudes surrounding her, but as a child, she takes little account of them - people are either nice or not nice, and that has nothing to do with their colour, gender, or sexual preferences. Indeed as Daisy Fay soon discovers people can present a very different face to the world, to the face that they present to their family.
This makes this all sound like quite a serious novel, but although in some ways it is, most of all it is wonderful comic writing. I hooted my way through most of the book. The serious moments when they fell were all the more captivating for the hilarity that surrounded them. It's been a long time since I read Fannie Flagg, and had forgotten what a wonderfully funny writer she is. Thank goodness for her (and for encouraging editors!)
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| Mississippi in the 1950's. Courtesy of Patrick Q / Flickr |
And so her first novel Daisy Fay and the miracle man was born. Daisy Fay tells the story of young Daisy Fay Harper, a girl growing up in Mississippi in the 1950's. It's told in Daisy Fay's own words through a series of diary entries. Daisy Fay lives with her dotty family - her father drinks and has aspirations to be a taxidermist when he's not managing the film projector at the local movie theatre. Daisy Fay's is a wonderful voice, one of the best children's voices to come out of America since Scout Finch. Daisy Fay is a rather more worldly, yet still innocent, voice, but they are clearly kindred spirits.
It is a novel of its period. It's hard (probably impossible) to write about Mississippi in the 1950's without reflecting on the problems of that period. Not least the racism, and some attitudes towards women. Daisy Fay may have grown up with these attitudes surrounding her, but as a child, she takes little account of them - people are either nice or not nice, and that has nothing to do with their colour, gender, or sexual preferences. Indeed as Daisy Fay soon discovers people can present a very different face to the world, to the face that they present to their family.
This makes this all sound like quite a serious novel, but although in some ways it is, most of all it is wonderful comic writing. I hooted my way through most of the book. The serious moments when they fell were all the more captivating for the hilarity that surrounded them. It's been a long time since I read Fannie Flagg, and had forgotten what a wonderfully funny writer she is. Thank goodness for her (and for encouraging editors!)
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