Product Description

A chronicle of this imaginary place, narrated by a skinny kid with wire-rimmed glasses who is raised as a straitlaced Protestant but is fascinated by the Catholic Church (he dreams of being burnt at the stake) and by the notion of a more exotic family background (he'd like to be called Keillorini).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128838 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Synopsis
A chronicle of this imaginary place, narrated by a skinny kid with wire-rimmed glasses who is raised as a straitlaced Protestant but is fascinated by the Catholic Church (he dreams of being burnt at the stake) and by the notion of a more exotic family background (he'd like to be called Keillorini).

Customer Reviews

Gossip From Home
Since I first heard GK reading from this book on BBC's Radio 4 he has become one of my favourite companions.

There is no doubt that he knows his characters like close family members, they are the most perfect, well formed beings you will find in literature. The greater gift though is that he has identified the archetypes who formed the backdrop to all our lives. Our parent's friends - and enemies, the shop assistants we know by name, everyone we grew up with in fact, if we were lucky enough to grow up in a small town, lives in his work.

I bought the book following his broadcasts and confess to being disappointed by the opening chapter, but this quickly passed. The scene setting nature and faux history didn't quite charm me as they might have. Once the characters and 'biography' became the focus though this changed immediately. The book quickly became a well thumbed friend to be joined by its siblings as they were published.

I find myself less excited, and charmed, by his journalism but when he concentrates on Lake Wobegone and its inhabitants there is no doubt that he is on his strongest ground.

None of us can see the future and it is impossible to say who, and what work will stand the test of time. There is no doubt in my mind, though, that Garrison Keillor's work, in the form of his greatest creation, Lake Wobegone, will live on like Huckleberry Finn as each new generation discovers it for themselves.