LITTLE ROCK — Linda Bloodworth Thomason hasn't been to Paris, Ark., but the town's name had a "poetic appeal" that prompted to her to use it as the setting of her first novel. "I've made it to Paris, France, but not to Paris, Arkansas," she joked. Thomason, co-creator of the television series "Designing Women" and "Evening Shade," says her novel about six friends who re-evaluate their lives around the time of their 40th birthdays is "an homage to people who live between New York and Los Angeles." The book is about Southerners adapting to social change and its intent...