**Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!** is the funny, serious, and compelling new novel by Fannie Flagg, author of the beloved **Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe** (and prize-winning co-writer of the classic movie).

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:

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

Dena's cousins, the Warrens, and her aunt Elner, ...