Standing in the Rainbow

 Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

Fannie Flagg has been on my radar for a while, but the only one of hers I've read was A Redbird Christmas and, sadly, I found it not very memorable. Still, something made me want to try one more and this was available at my local library so here we are. 

It's almost 500 pages long, about 150 pages longer than my interest lasted. It centers around Dorothy and Doc (Robert) Smith, Doc's mother (referred to Mother Smith) and the Smith children Anna Lee and Bobby. They have a boarder - with no hotel in the town most people take in boarders - named Jimmy, and eventually they take in another, Betty Raye Oatman, a teenager who travels constantly with her gospel-singing family but longs for a more settled life.

Other characters include Anna Lee's friends, Norma and Patsy Marie; Bobby's friend, Monroe; neighbour Beatrice Woods, a blind singer; Tot Whooton, a put-upon hairdresser whose mother is forever wondering off and needing rescuing; and Ham Sparks, a young entrepreneur who eventually marries Betty Raye and becomes Governor. His journey to that position seems unlikely, and when his term ends and he "runs" the completely inexperienced Betty Raye for Governor, it feels almost farcical.

 All these characters stories, over the almost five decades covered in the book, revolve around Dorothy's as she hosts a radio show, called The Neighbour Dorothy Program, from her living room. With Mother Smith on piano, she showcases singers, interviews people of interest, shares local news, and reads letters from her listeners. While she's busy with that, Doc runs a drug store and fills the townsfolk's prescriptions, Bobby indulges a sense of adventure that gets him into endless trouble, and Beatrice dreams of a different life than the one this town can offer her.

My interest in the plot waned when it stopped making sense, and in the characters when they stayed firmly on the page and never became quite real. It's a pleasant story about pleasant people in a pleasant place, but it doesn't offer much beyond that and it doesn't ask much of the reader other than to accept a few improbabilities. I wanted to like it and I feel sorry that I haven’t anything better to say about it.