Hmmm. I think Keillor's schtick is getting old. Either that or he's writing too much and the quality control suffers. Maybe he has bills to pay. Whatever, this was a most disappointing book. Keillor's schtick, for those who don't know, is to chronicle the doings of people in a dull hick town in Minnesota, wringing comedy from their very ordinary lives with sharp observation and dry wit. Remove the laughs, as in this book, and what you have is a litany of rather depressing life stories, each one a born loser. After about three of these, and only half a laugh in the lot, I got the feeling that this was not one of Mr. Keillor's best. Worse was yet to come, because, as was apparent almost from the start, he had in store for us a Grand Finale of unlikely farce. There are two problems with this; 1) farce is rarely very funny, and this one was no exception, and 2) unlikely farce sits very badly in Lake Wobegon, a town where nothing exciting or unusual ever happens. That's the whole Wobegon joke, and if you undermine that whole Wobegonian ethos for the sake of some cheap gags, what's left?

Verdict: two Norwegian bachelor farmers out of ten. ( )

This is a story strictly for people who are familiar with Lake Wobegon. Like most Lake Wobegon stories, it's rather hard to get started into. It's dense with many little things that somehow fits together at the end, no matter how absurd it is. This was one of the few books I was not able to skim. There is something going on with every word. I love how every time I meet a new character in this little town there is more then what meets the eyes. Evelyn knew exactly who she was and lived her life as she intended to. I feel this story pointed out the absurdity of living a conformed life. You try hard to please everyone else but yourself. At the end you will be miserable and perhaps turn into an alcoholic. It makes me want to take destiny in my own hands and run off to Reno for the weekend. ( )

laugh out loud funny, especially if you're a lutheran. Keillor does the reading on the cd and this is my second listening and I still laughed. wonderful ( )

Fiction--American ( )

Evelyn Peterson lived a very full and straight-forward life during her 82
years on this earth, and when her daughter, Barbara, found her after her
death, it was a bit of a shock, but not a real surprise, given her age. But
when Barbara finds a letter from her mother hidden in the nightstand in an
envelope marked, simply, "Arrangements," she is astounded. Evelyn wishes to
be cremated immediately, her ashes placed inside the green bowling ball
stored in the hall closet (that was given to her by someone named Raoul) and
then dropped into Lake Woebegon, no prayers, no preacher, no hymns, thank
you very much. For one of the more dependable Lutheran women in town, this
seems to be an outrageous request. As Barbara comes to grips with this and
begins to go through her mother's things, she discovers letters hidden away
here and there, written to her but never mailed, that reveal that her mother
had led a secret life, with a racy boyfriend named Raoul. The town is
shocked and Evelyn's sister Florence is scandalized, but Barbara becomes
determined to do things the way her mother wanted, and in the process,
decides to shake up her own life a bit in the process.

This book will be a delight for any fan of Keillor's Lake Woebegon stories.
It's as rich and detailed, humorous and character driven as his most
complicated stories of this fictional place. It's a book that almost
demands to be read aloud, in that rich baritone voice that has floated
across the airwaves, lo, these many years. It's also a book that I will
read again. It gets a very strong 5. ( )