Liberty (Lake Wobegon)

Keillor, Garrison

ISBN 10: 1598876716 ISBN 13: 9781598876710

Publisher: HighBridge Company, 2008

Synopsis

Garrison Keillor returns to the little town we love and continues to chronicle the lives of our favorite folks.

Lake Wobegon is in a frenzy of preparations for the Fourth of July. This being Wobegon, lives collide and relationships develop in the oddest ways. Take Clint Bunson, the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts cars on below-zero mornings. For six years, he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks into an event of dazzling spectacle.

The town is dizzy with anticipation—until they hear of Clint’s ambition to run for Congress. They know about his episodes with vodka sours, his rocky marriage, and his friendship with the 24-year-old who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade and may be buck naked beneath her robes.

In Keillor’s words, “It is Lake Wobegon as you imagined it—good loving people who drive each other crazy.”

About this title

About the Author:

GARRISON KEILLOR is America’s favorite storyteller. For more than 35 years, as the host of A Prairie Home Companion, he has captivated millions of listeners with his weekly News from Lake Wobegon monologues. A Prairie Home Companion is heard on hundreds of public radio stations, as well as America One, the Armed Forces Networks, Sirius Satellite Radio, and via a live audio webcast. 
 
Keillor is also the author of several books and a frequent contributor to national publications including Time, The New Yorker, and National Geographic, in addition to writing his own syndicated column. He has been awarded a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment of the Humanities. When not touring, he resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

From Booklist:

Clint Bunsen just turned 60, which, after 37 years married to his childhood sweetheart, turns out to be a dangerous age. He’s regretting having come back home from California, where he was set to go to art school after a hitch in the navy, those many long years ago. It was supposed to be a farewell visit, but Irene enticed him to a cabin, and in those days (1970s!) in central Minnesota, conjugal relations mandated marriage. Furthermore, Clint has used the Internet to contact last year’s Miss Liberty in Lake Wobegon’s annual Fourth of July parade, and one thing led to another to a motel night of ecstasy, and now, damned if he doesn’t want to take her up on fleeing to San Francisco with her, especially since Viola Tors bushwhacked him out of chairmanship of the parade committee, the only thing about Lake Wobegon he still enjoyed. Of course, wanting is simple, and doing isn’t. Liberty has much the same shape, that of a pell-mell rush to a pyrotechnical climax (this year’s parade), as the last Lake Wobegon chronicle, Pontoon (2007), which was so memorably wacky and affecting that it’s hard to believe the new one follows it by a full year. We should be grateful, though, since Liberty’s almost as funny and definitely as moving. --Ray Olson

About this edition

• Publisher: HighBridge Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1598876716
• ISBN 13: 9781598876710
• Binding: Audio CD