Column: The Best Books Club, "A Redbird Christmas," by Fannie Flagg

Photo by Andreea Radu

Within two years of my entering the primetime years — aka the “best years” — my youngest child left the nest, my husband passed away, my last surviving parent died, I weathered a major career change and moved from my hometown. Thrust into a “new normal” I despised, I longed for my old life, for its familiarity and the joy it had brought.

I couldn’t stop revisiting in my thoughts my childhood and the years when my own children were growing up. I daydreamed of a road trip of my life, starting in Long Beach, Calif., to zigzag around the country following the trajectory that had eventually brought me to Cape Girardeau, then away from here and back a few times, going to places we’d lived or visited.

I remembered people who had once been an integral part of my life, but with whom I had, in the busy-ness of life and before social media, gradually lost contact. I thought of those I had wished to know better.

In the past 10 years, I’ve been able to revisit some of those places and reach out to more than a few of those people. As you can probably guess — and I should have known then — the outcome was often not what I had anticipated.

A favorite getaway spot my childhood family — and later my husband, children and I — enjoyed visiting every few years is no longer the cute, bustling town oozing family values and peppered with locally-owned businesses. Today, it is a massive tourist attraction filled with chain restaurants, outlet malls and roads jammed with “parking lot” traffic, all under an umbrella of a glitzy, neon-lit commercialism.

Reconnecting with people has also brought a mixed bag of outcomes. Some new friendships have formed and old ones have been rekindled. Physical distance means that in large part, we communicate fairly regularly via social media, texts, phone calls and even a few in-person visits, and I meet for lunch once a month with a group of former classmates who live in the area. On the other hand, being rebuffed by the woman who I considered my best friend for more than 12 years smarted a bit. Learning what it means to be “ghosted” — four times by the same person, no less! — and being excluded from “family” events like a girls-day pedicure and weddings were initially downright painful.

We all deal with unrealized — perhaps unrealistic to begin with — expectations. I did so again when reading this month’s selection, “A Redbird Christmas,” by Fannie Flagg. (I bet you were wondering when I was going to get around to discussing the book!)

I chose the novel because I remembered it as an easy, uplifting novel that was a nice balance between engrossing and undemanding. Simply put, it was a book I could curl up with and sink into, yet easily lay aside when it was time to return to my lengthy holiday to-do list.

Unfortunately, it didn’t meet my memory of it, and as a result, my expectations. But I’m not blaming the book. Goodness knows, I’ve read thousands of books in the more than 10 years since I first read “A Redbird Christmas.” The fact that it wasn’t as I remembered isn’t surprising!

And just as I enjoyed the now-glitzy getaway on its current merits and the new and renewed relationships with people from my past, I enjoyed “A Redbird Christmas.”

But I only enjoyed them once I let go of what was and appreciated what is now.

Join Jasmine and I for our monthly Facebook Live conversation at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 12, in The Best Books Facebook group when we discuss “A Redbird Christmas.” Some questions we’ll consider:

1. Who were your favorite characters in the book and why?

2. Why do you think Jack, a redbird that is — let’s be honest — a pest, so beloved by the townspeople? How does he “serve” the community of Lost River?

3. Consider how Oswald Campbell got his name, as well as the name of the community itself. How are both significant and/or symbolic?

4. Did you enjoy the book? Did you think it was, as some reviewers have claimed, “too saccharine,” or was it just right?

5. If you had been Flagg’s editor, what suggestions — if any — would you have encouraged her to make before publishing the book?

Up Next

Our January selection takes us back to nonfiction, as we read “The Ride of Her Life: The true story of a woman, her horse and their last-chance journey across America,” by Elizabeth Letts. I’ve just begun reading this story, set in 1954, of 63-year-old Annie Wilkins, who leaves Maine on a gelding named Tarzan and travels across the country to see the Pacific Ocean. And she does so without a map! So far, it’s a leisurely read — perfect for dark winter evenings in a comfy chair with a mug of hot chocolate within reach.

This book is available at the Cape Girardeau Public Library, and the ebook is available through Libby, which is free for Cape Girardeau Public Library card holders. It is also available on Audio and, of course, at online and brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Patti Miinch, a resident of Cape Girardeau, is an author, mother and mother-in-law of two, grandmother of five and retired educator; while she has many loves, spending time with her family, sports, travel and reading top the list.