Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man is a 1981 novel by author Fannie Flagg. It was originally published under the title Coming Attractions. The story is a series of diary entries that chronicle the main character's years growing up in Mississippi from 1952 to 1959.
Plot
Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man is told in diary writings starting in 1952 when the protagonist, Daisy Fay Harper, is 11 years old. She lives with her mother and her father in Jackson, Mississippi. Daisy Fay received her name from a vase of flowers that her mother had in her hospital room. Her father involves her in many of his unsuccessful schemes to make money or build inventions. He alienates his family members but makes great friends when he drinks.
Her mother lives in a constant state of embarrassment, and tries to do what she can to make Daisy Fay into a lady, which consists of making her fetch endless cups of coffee in the cafeteria, and buying matching mother-daughter outfits.
Her mother, Daisy's Grandma Pettibone, believes she married beneath her. (Despite both sets of Grandparents not speaking to Daisy's father, they absolutely dote on Daisy) The diary reveals Daisy Fay has an expansive imagination and a detailed memory as a long list of endearing and strange characters are described and the story is told in humorous vignettes.
Soon after the beginning of the diary, Daisy Fay and her parents move to Shell Beach, Mississippi, after her father buys half a share of a malt shop on the beach with $500 her mother won at a Bingo game. Daisy's mother was dead set against moving from Jackson, but her father stated that since nobody in their respective families were speaking to him, they would have been unhappy staying in Jackson, hence the move.
Her father's plan is to become a taxidermist during the off season, and to use the malt shop's freezer to store the dead animals before stuffing them.
The biggest town near Shell Beach is Magnolia Springs, where the school, a movie theater and several other businesses are. Her parents' relationship becomes more tempestuous as her father drinks too much and hangs around a gentle crop duster named Jimmy Snow, and they manage to get into impossible situations.
When the fall starts, Daisy Fay starts the 6th grade and meets her classmates, which include the very snobby and spoiled Kay Bob Benson, who serves as a nemesis for Daisy Fay throughout the rest of the book. Daisy's best friend is Michael Romeo, a Catholic, and the only other child, aside from Daisy and Kay Bob, who lives in Shell Beach full-time.
She also makes friends with classmates, Patsy Ruth Coggins and Amy Jo Snipes, among others, and is good friends with an African-American mortician/bar owner named Peachy Wigham and her co-hort, an albino named Ula Sour. Peachy, the owner of the Elite Nightspot bar, had a secret on the white Sheriff's daughter, (she had had an abortion) which was why she wasn't ever arrested.
Also, she meets Mrs. Dudley Dot, a journalist (she writes the Dashes from Dot column for the local paper) and the leader of the Junior Debutantes, a pre-teen group which meets in the bait shop over the summer. Mrs. Dot is idolized by Daisy, and is eventually institutionalized after trying to kill her hateful husband.
The taxidermy doesn't seem to work out well, as the bobcat had a smile on its face and the flamingo's neck was crooked. Added to that is the fact that Daisy Fay's father didn't add bread to the hamburgers, and his drinking increased.
Daisy's parents relationship gets even more and more rancorous, with them fighting over money and various infidelities.
In fact, one argument was so bad that Mrs. Harper, armed with a gun, was intent on killing Mr. Harper dead. So angry was she at him that she kicks the screen door clean off the hinges and knocks him eight feet into the back yard. She then proceeded to chase him all over the beach, but she never catches him.
After the malt shop burns down in a suspicious fire (the insurance money wasn't enough anyway), Daisy Fay's mother, finally having had enough of Daisy Fay's father, leaves him to go live with her sister, Mignon, in Virginia.
With her mother gone, her father devises a three-day scheme with a scheming local preacher named Billy Bundy to use Daisy Fay as a "glory getter" to bring her back from the dead and bilk the faithful religious out of their donations. The plan falls apart of course, when Daisy is asked to heal a disabled girl named Betty Caldwell, the girl walked, and the crowd went berserk.
Her father and she had to escape quickly in Jimmy Snow's cropduster to Florida, and the diary takes a hiatus for four years.