Books in Brief: Coming Attractions

Coming Attractions, by Fannie Flagg (Morrow, 320 pp., $12.95). Call this a classic case of underemployment. Miss Flagg, a veteran of TV talk and game shows and co-star of NBC’s underwhelming series Harper Valley, has published her first novel. Her debut is boffo. Through the device of a diary, we observe Daisy Fay Harper’s life as she advances from age 12 to early adulthood in the Mississippi of the 1950s. Miss Flagg has accurately pegged the emotions and expressions of a teenaged girl, as Daisy Fay (named for a vase of flowers in her mother’s maternity room) comments on a life that is wild and improbable by any standard. Her chipped tooth is given equal status with her father’s excessive drinking and business failures, and the breakup of her parents’ marriage may be no . less important than a cutting remark by her longtime rival Kay Bob Benson. Despite the upheavals in her life, Daisy Fay’s precocious spunk impresses other characters, and it is through their help that she is enabled to enter the Miss Mississippi contest, where the novel climaxes. Miss Flagg has been more than a little influenced by Flannery O’Connor, and shares her gift for handling the absurd in Southern life. But in the long run, Miss Flagg’s own talent carries the day. The novel is an extremely fast read—I gulped it down in three sittings—and, for most of the way, the reader doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Coming Attractions has all the earmarks of an Official Feminist Novel, but a closer examination reveals the more universal theme of triumphing over life’s circumstances. If this novel is any indication, Miss Flagg should spend more of her time at the typewriter. It may be profitable, in more ways than one.

GE

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Gerard Einhaus

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Coming Attractions, by Fannie Flagg (Morrow, 320 pp., $12.95). Call this a classic case of underemployment. Miss Flagg, a veteran of TV talk and game shows and co-star of NBC’s underwhelming series Harper Valley, has published her first novel. Her debut is boffo. Through the device of a diary, we observe Daisy Fay Harper’s life as she advances from age 12 to early adulthood in the Mississippi of the 1950s. Miss Flagg has accurately pegged the emotions and expressions of a teenaged girl, as Daisy Fay (named for a vase of flowers in her mother’s maternity room) comments on a life that is wild and improbable by any standard. Her chipped tooth is given equal status with her father’s excessive drinking and business failures, and the breakup of her parents’ marriage may be no . less important than a cutting remark by her longtime rival Kay Bob Benson. Despite the upheavals in her life, Daisy Fay’s precocious spunk impresses other characters, and it is through their help that she is enabled to enter the Miss Mississippi contest, where the novel climaxes. Miss Flagg has been more than a little influenced by Flannery O’Connor, and shares her gift for handling the absurd in Southern life. But in the long run, Miss Flagg’s own talent carries the day. The novel is an extremely fast read—I gulped it down in three sittings—and, for most of the way, the reader doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Coming Attractions has all the earmarks of an Official Feminist Novel, but a closer examination reveals the more universal theme of triumphing over life’s circumstances. If this novel is any indication, Miss Flagg should spend more of her time at the typewriter. It may be profitable, in more ways than one.