Lake Wobegon
5 total works
Lake Wobegon Days is the marvellous chronicle of an imaginary place located somewhere in the middle of the state (but not on the map) and named after an Indian word meaning 'Here we are!' or 'We sat all day in the rain waiting for you.' From the narrator - a skinny Protestant kid fascinated by the Catholic church - we learn of the town's beginnings and of the settlers who made their lives there. A contemporary classic filled with warmth and humour, sadness and tenderness, songs and poems, it is also an unforgettable portrait of small-town America.
In Lake Wobegon lives a good Lutheran lady who wishes for her ashes placed inside a bowling ball and dropped into the lake, no prayers, no hymns, thank you very much. Meanwhile, a wedding between a veterinary aromatherapist and her boyfriend Brent is set to take place aboard a pontoon boat. Then a delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark come to town on their tour of America - their punishment for having denied the divinity of Jesus. And then there is Raoul of the cigars and tinted shades, come to visit his elderly lover. All is in readiness for the wedding - the French champagne, the flying Elvis, the giant duck decoys - until something quite unexpected happens ...
Clint Bunsen is one of Lake Wobegon's old reliables - the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts your car on below-zero mornings. For six years he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks and girls pushing their cats in baby carriages into an event of such dazzling spectacle that it has earned the attention of CNN and prompted an appearance by the governor. Then Clint announces his run for Congress.
In this collection of stories from Lake Wobegon, the author takes us to a place that is everyone's home town - where the women are strong and the men are good-looking and all the children are above average. Is is a celebration of the life and the people of that place, narrated with wit. Keillor has also written "Lake Wobegon Days" and "Happy to be Here". From 1974 to 1987 he was host of the popular American live radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion" in which he described the town of Lake Wobegon.
