Love Me

By Garrison Keillor

Larry is just an ordinary guy living in Minnesota. He wants to be a novelist. And he succeeds. His novel is a big hit. He's famous, acclaimed, money pouring in. Now he wants to take advantage of it all and move to New York and work for the New Yorker. But he's married and his wife refuses to leave Minnesota. She is not interested in the advantages that New York offers. So she stays in Minnesota and Larry goes to New York.
New York is everything Larry wanted. He loves life in the city. He loves his apartment, especially the terracer. He loves being at the New Yorker. Only two things are messing it up for him. He's got writer's block and his wife is adamant about staying in Minnesota.
The years pass. His writing career is in the toilet. He is drinking too much. He is chasing after women. His wife is leading her own life. He ends up writing an advice column for a newspaper. It isn't until he thinks his wife is becoming attached to someone else that he finally returns home to Minnesota.

I enjoyed this story quite a lot. It got my attention from the very start, always a good sign. It has some fun and rather silly bits and the advice column stuff is really great, maybe one of the best parts of the whole thing. One of the advice-seeking letters is from a famous George:

"I grew up in Midland, Texas, and went to Yale though I am no reader and married a fine woman who supported me through my Lost Weekend years when I goofed around in the oil business and got high as a kite on weekends and went around making a fool of myself. With the help of dear friends, I was able to sell my bankrupt company at a handsome profit and then obtain a major-league baseball franchise and get public financing for a ballpark, whereupon I sold the team for a fabulous profit. What a lucky duck. Now that I'm off the sauce, I am considering taking a stab at politics (my dad was a politician though not a very good one, IMHO,) but I hate hanging around with dull people who yak about the fine points of public finance or Whatever! And my wife says, "Why don't you try writing? You have so many good ideas." What do you think?"

And since I included the George letter, I want to also include Larry's rant about Republicans:

"...Bullet-headed ideologues devoted to prisons and sterile office parks and McMansion developments and pumping oil and destroying the Alaska wilderness to power their SUV's while taking away funds for homeless children sleeping in doorways to pay millions to fat-cat farmers and ranchers firmly attached to the right hind teat of federal welfare." 

 The only thing I didn't care for in the whole story was the ending, which was depressing and disappointing. Oh, well.

Liberty

By Garrison Keillor

Clint Bunsen is the chairman of the Fourth of July committee which is in charge of all the festivities and the parade in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Last year's parade was a huge success, even getting airtime on CNN. Clint is determined to repeat last year's success but it ain't easy. The other committee members are fighting him every step of the way. They want to bring back the old boring stuff like the reading of the Declaration of Independence and fat old farmers driving their tractors in the parade. Also, Clint has hired professionals to handle the fireworks display instead of letting the volunteer fire fighters do it as in the past. But professionals cost money and the committee is kicking and Clint is getting fed up. He offers his resignation to the committee, not dreaming they will accept it, but they do. So this will be Clint's last year running the Fourth of July celebration.
Clint was surprised that the committee accepted his resignation but maybe it is not such a bad thing. Because Clint is feeling like life has passed him by and that he needs a change. Born and raised in Lake Wobegon and living most of his life there except for his stint in the military, Clint is stagnating. Tired of his job, tired of his wife, Irene, tired of Minnesota and Lake Wobegon, tired even of being of Norweigan heritage, Clint is easy pickings when a hot piece of tail comes sashaying his way, the beautiful young Angelica. She was Miss Liberty in last year's parade when she and Clint struck up an acquaintance that they maintained via the Internet and that eventually ended up in a motel room where Clint discovered he is not quite ready for the graveyard yet. Charmed by Angelica and mislead by a faulty DNA report that informed him he was not Norwegian but in fact Hispanic, Clint has set his sights on going back to California, where he lived when in the military, with Angelica on his arm. He always regretted leaving California and moving back to Lake Wobegon.
So the big day arrives with its various complications and Clint is still in charge and Angelica is in town to reprise her role as Miss Liberty and Clint's wife Irene has gotten hold of a hand gun and someone is going to pay for messing up her marriage.

It's always nice to visit Lake Wobegon whether on the radio or in one of Keillor's books. These small town folks have their biases and their moments like we all do but still, viewed through Keillor's eyes the humor comes through even with the whiny jerks on Clint's committee. Clint's problems are our problems, his disappointments our disappointments and his failures our failures too. Who hasn't thought "what if" or contemplated being in forbidden arms? Who hasn't thought that their life has become a prison they'd give almost anything to escape from? Rooting for Clint to find some happiness and watching him reach his decision was not only a lot of fun but touching too. Liberty was a delight to read and I hope Keillor continues to write books about Lake Wobegon.

For another review of the book see The New York Times.