Lake Wobegon Days - by Garrison Keillor - Book Review

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

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“Dogs don’t lie, and why should I?
Strangers come, they growl and bark.
They know their loved ones in the dark.
Now let me, by night or day,
Be just as full of truth as they.”

Garrison Keillor
Lake Wobegon Days

For those not familiar with the work of Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days represents an ideal place to get acquainted. The reader accompanies Keillor as he reminisces about the good old days, through his eyes, those of a timid observer, rather than active participant. It’s a ruse, of course. One designed to draw the reader in, similar to the way a fisherman gently tightens the drag just before giving a firm tug on the line. Before you have a opportunity to react, your hooked. Come to think of it, I suspect Garrison would appreciate the fishing metaphor.



Garrison may have dreamed-up the sleepy town of Lake Wobegon, but he certainly didn’t imagine the setting. Lake Wobegon represents any one of perhaps thousands of small towns and lakes for which Minnesota is known.
Keillor shares with us Wobegon’s most memorable residents, living and otherwise.

Keillor serves as the narrator, and it’s all in good fun, as we meet the neighbors, an array of aunts and uncles and many distant relatives of varied sorts. We tour their living rooms, we attend their church services and we even meet the ministers wife. We sit it the freshly painted pews, and on occasion, we tell a few dirty jokes. Well, actually, Garrison does. It’s a feel good experience from cover to cover, and one that leaves the reader longing for rutted back roads, and a slow drive past the old alma mater.

Lake Wobegon days is packed full of colorful people, and the stories of their equally colorful lives, and in some cases, deaths (RIP Wally Bunson). Sometimes we laugh when we shouldn’t , but I guess that is part Garrison’s mastery, cajoling laughter from dark corners.

Finally, Lake Wobegon Days is therapy for the weary of heart. Oh, and it’s an easy read, a pleasant stroll around the old spur. I think Sister Arvonne put it best. “They’ll never remember it“, said Sister Brunnhilde. “It’s too complicated”. “It’s beautiful”, said Sister Arvonne. “Besides, everybody knows the story anyway”. She was right of course.

B. Thomas Cooper - Editor

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