Flagg's latest novel, Welcome to the World Baby Girl! (1998), is a long way from Whistle Stop. The novel tells the story of Dena Norstrom who makes it big in New York. On the way, Dena achieves an ulcer, a psychologist, and ethics.

Flagg's first novel was reissued as Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man in 1992. The novel tells about the misadventures of twelve-year-old Daisy Fay in the Mississippi Gulf Coast region of the 1950s.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison, tells the tale of another Southern family with experiences very different from the Threadgoodes. The story centers on the coming of age of Ruth "Bone" Boatwright.

Published in 1982, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1983, Alice Walker's The Color Purple tells the story of an abused woman who finally becomes self-empowered. This feminist novel is praised for its character depth and depiction of black vernacular.

The 1985 novel by radio comedian Garrison Keillor tells the complete story of that special Norwegian utopia. Lake Wobegone Days mythologizes Minnesota in a quaint, and ironic, manner. Keillor's audio recording of the novel won a Grammy Award.

The most famous novel by one of the best contemporary black authors is The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines. Published in 1971, the novel is purportedly the story of a 110-year-old woman. Her story begins with the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and ends in the 1960s. Gaines, like Flagg, spent many hours interviewing old-timers for this novel.