Editor’s Note: Roberta Jackson will be contributing book reviews to East Ridge News Online. This is Ms. Jackson’s second offering to ERNO readers. Hope you enjoy this addition to the city’s only local news source.

For some reason, lately I am being drawn to books that connect to some extent to the first or second World Wars.

So let me bring you along with me, to enjoy Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion.  Yes, it has the wonderful easy-to-read style we expect from the author of Fried Green Tomatoes. Yes, we do have a group of strong female characters, and an ongoing plot that is humorous, very Southern in its telling, and at the same time, will take your breath away in awe and a few tears, and pure gladness that you read this book.  I don’t mean heavy sobbing.  I just mean that swallowing we do when we are so touched, so truly moved, we cannot speak or do anything for that moment but be amazed, and so glad that we read this story.

And as we learn of the various characters, during both World War II America of a Northern town populated by Polish immigrants, and current day coastal Alabama, there are still unknown stories of WWII that come to light here, of things endured, and forgotten, or deliberately swept away and hidden.

And one thing that was hidden, I learned, is of the American female pilots who flew cargo, men, and planes to and from American bases, or carried soldiers to pick-up points for going overseas.

I do not know what bothered me the most: That this is not common knowledge? That I did not know of these women pilots? That these women, at no time during the war, were ever given funds to take a train or plane or bus back to their own home base, for their next round of endless duties, while male pilots were given free rides on planes to and from bases? Or that after the war, this dedication by these women, who fought their own American counterparts to be allowed to fly, just as they fought to get planes, men, and materials to bases for transport overseas – that all of that work and pride was deliberately hidden away by our government? I don’t really understand why. Maybe it’s because I live in this day and time, and because of the efforts of such women, I have learned to find such a thing unbelievable and well, stupid.  I am so glad, just for that reason alone, that I read this book, to learn about these women who fought to fly, and who died at times while trying to do their duties, and who loved flying. 

But another reason to love this book is just the pure joy of Southernisms, of nodding to yourself and grinning while thinking, “Yes, that sounds like something my grandmother would say!” and bringing back all of those wonderful rich memories of happy times. Laughing at the antics by some of the characters (I will never look at putting out bird food in quite the same way!). Just enjoying a wonderful book, a lovely story, and understanding that there is more than one type of reunion going on in this book. 

Now. Go read this book!

_ Roberta Jackson