Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
Fannie Flagg
Random House Publishing Group
<p>Once again, Flagg's humor and respect and affection for her characters shine forth. Many inhabit small-town or suburban America. But this time, her heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.   Among the colorful cast of characters are:</p>
<p>Sookie, of Selma, Alabama, Dena's exuberant  college roommate, who is everything that Dena  is not; she is thrilled by Dena's success and will  do everything short of signing autographs for  her; Sookie's a mom, a wife, and a Kappa forever  <br><br>    Dena's cousins, the Warrens, and her aunt Elner,  of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, endearing, loyal,  talkative, ditsy, and, in their way, wise  <br><br>    Neighbor Dorothy, whose spirit hovers over them  all through the radio show that she broadcast  from her home in the 1940s  <br><br>   Sidney Capello, pioneer of modern sleaze journalism and privateer of privacy, and Ira Wallace,  his partner in tabloid television  <br><br>    Several doctors, all of them taken with--and  almost taken in by-Dena</p>
<p>There are others, captivated by a woman who tries to go home again, not knowing where home or love lie.</p>