The Whole Town Is Talking

 I love Fannie Flagg as an author and here I found one that I had not read yet. This is the fourth in the series about Elmwood Springs, Missouri, but it can be read as a stand alone book. The title is The Whole Town Is Talking. The story is about a Swedish farmer who puts an ad in a Chicago newspaper looking for a Swedish wife around 1850.  Lordnor Nordstrom marries his Swedish bride, Katrina, and together, with their farming neighbors, organize a town. Everytown needs a cemetery and theirs is called Still Meadows. Lordnor and Katrina are nice people and they work hard. Not everyone who lived in Elmwood Springs between the 1850's and the current year are nice nor hardworking. For example, there is a hairdresser named Tot who married a good for nothing husband and now has two good for nothing children. The town of Elmwood Springs peaked from about 1900 to 1940 and now has gone downhill. The cemetery lied abandoned with the monuments knocked over. I listened to this story of audiobook and enjoyed every dang minute of the story.