BuzzFlash Reviews
Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon, New (Hardcover)
By Garrison Keillor
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If the GOP were really sincere about American values, it would be hard to find someone who has created a fictional representation of who we are as a people, filled with Americana as heartwarming as Apple Betty and the droll humor of a modern Mark Twain.
Of course, Keillor imbues his stories with a preoccupation about a certain religion, but his invocation of Lutheranism is something that we can all relate too, because his experiences transcend any individual belief.
This September release is the latest in the endlessly enjoyable Garrison Keillor tale of a fictional American town that has captured the hearts of so many of us.
From Publishers Weekly:
Keillor's delightful latest addition to the Lake Wobegon series, set in the fictional Minnesota town known to legions of A Prairie Home Companion radio show fans, opens with a typically laconic musing: Evelyn was an insomniac, so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that. The author's storytelling skills come to the fore as he describes Evelyn Peterson, a sprightly 82-year-old whose secret life of romance and adventure is revealed after her death. Her daughter, Barbara, a please-everyone type with a fondness for chocolate liqueur, finds Evelyn dead in bed, and things snowball from there. Debbie Detmer, who made her fortune as an animal therapist for the rich and famous, is planning a grand commitment ceremony (on a pontoon boat in Lake Wobegon) to celebrate her relationship with a private jet time-share salesman. Meanwhile, Barbara plans to carry out her mother's wishes for a cremation ceremony involving a bowling ball filled with her ashes.
From the Publisher, Viking Books:
A fresh and funny Lake Wobegon novel about a woman with a secret life
In Lake Wobegon lives a good Lutheran lady who is quite prepared to die and wishes to be cremated and her ashes placed inside a bowling ball and dropped into the lake, no prayers, no hymns, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the Detmer girl returns from California where she has made a killing in veterinary aromatherapy to marry her boyfriend Brent aboard Wally's pontoon boat, presided over by her minister, Misty Naylor of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Spirit. Brent arrives on Thursday. On Saturday, 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 Barbara Peterson, whose mother, Evelyn, left the startling note about cremation and the bowling ball, is in love with a lovely fat man who slips around town in the dim light and reconnoiters with her at the Romeo Motel.
An the then there is Raoul of the cigars and tinted shades and rainbow sportscoat and his long phone message ("Hey, Precious") after the angel of death has already come and gone.
All is in readiness for the wedding—the giant shrimp shish kebabs, the French champagne, the wheels of imported cheese, the pate with whole peppercorns, the hot-air balloon, the flying Elvis, the pontoon boat, and the giant duck decoys—and then something else happens.
It is Lake Wobegon as you've imagined it—good loving people who drive each other slightly crazy.
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