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Lake Wobegon #7
Pontoon
Garrison Keillor makes his long- awaited return to Lake Wobegon with this New York Times bestseller
The first new Lake Wobegon novel in seven years is a cause for celebration. And Pontoon is nothing less than a spectacular return to form?replete with a bowling ball-urn, a hot-air balloon, giant duck decoys, a flying Elvis, and, most importantly, Wally?s pontoon boat. As the wedding of the decade approaches (accompanied by wheels of imported cheese and giant shrimp shish kebabs), the good-loving people of Lake Wobegon do what they do best: drive each other slightly crazy.
The first new Lake Wobegon novel in seven years is a cause for celebration. And Pontoon is nothing less than a spectacular return to form?replete with a bowling ball-urn, a hot-air balloon, giant duck decoys, a flying Elvis, and, most importantly, Wally?s pontoon boat. As the wedding of the decade approaches (accompanied by wheels of imported cheese and giant shrimp shish kebabs), the good-loving people of Lake Wobegon do what they do best: drive each other slightly crazy.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2007
127 people are currently reading
1135 people want to read
About the author
Garrison Keillor
279 books835 followersGary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality. He created the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) show A Prairie Home Companion (called Garrison Keillor's Radio Show in some international syndication), which he hosted from 1974 to 2016. Keillor created the fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, the setting of many of his books, including Lake Wobegon Days and Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories. Other creations include Guy Noir, a detective voiced by Keillor who appeared in A Prairie Home Companion comic skits. Keillor is also the creator of the five-minute daily radio/podcast program The Writer's Almanac, which pairs poems of his choice with a script about important literary, historical, and scientific events that coincided with that date in history.
In November 2017, Minnesota Public Radio cut all business ties with Keillor after an allegation of inappropriate behavior with a freelance writer for A Prairie Home Companion. On April 13, 2018, MPR and Keillor announced a settlement that allows archives of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac to be publicly available again, and soon thereafter, Keillor began publishing new episodes of The Writer's Almanac on his website. He also continues to tour a stage version of A Prairie Home Companion, although these shows are not broadcast by MPR or American Public Media.
In November 2017, Minnesota Public Radio cut all business ties with Keillor after an allegation of inappropriate behavior with a freelance writer for A Prairie Home Companion. On April 13, 2018, MPR and Keillor announced a settlement that allows archives of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac to be publicly available again, and soon thereafter, Keillor began publishing new episodes of The Writer's Almanac on his website. He also continues to tour a stage version of A Prairie Home Companion, although these shows are not broadcast by MPR or American Public Media.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 674 reviews
September 19, 2009
This audio-CD of Garrison Keillor's novel, _PONTOON_, is priceless! I'm having such a good time listening to it. Garrison Keillor's dry delivery makes the story so funny that I doubt if reading the book could be more amusing.
Keillor's character development is delightful. His description of each character's outlook on life makes me smile broadly. As I listen, I recognize some of my own ideas about life and that makes it all the more fun.
Although I tend to avoid audio versions because my mind wanders, Garrison Keillor keeps my attention at all times. Coming from me, that is a great recommendation!
I listen to the CDs while I'm riding in the car. I can't wait to get into the car to hear more of the story.
PS-Great story. The ending is hilarious.
Keillor's character development is delightful. His description of each character's outlook on life makes me smile broadly. As I listen, I recognize some of my own ideas about life and that makes it all the more fun.
Although I tend to avoid audio versions because my mind wanders, Garrison Keillor keeps my attention at all times. Coming from me, that is a great recommendation!
I listen to the CDs while I'm riding in the car. I can't wait to get into the car to hear more of the story.
PS-Great story. The ending is hilarious.
July 4, 2017
The author led me through a magical tour of Lake Wobegon with all its colorful townsfolk. It's an enchanting small town where as expected, everyone knows each other. This glorious tale whisked me through the many lives and dramas that had come to play out in amusing fashion. It was an enjoyable ride that left me with a "good feel" in my stomach as only Garrison Keillor could provide. in the end, I was sorry to leave.
June 28, 2019
The events of this short novel are the long set-up for a joke that in the end really delivered.
To be honest, I was initially skeptical of this book. For 42 years Garrison Keillor narrated with affectionately benign humor the dooings of the denizens of Lake Wobegon, a stand-in for a mythical small-town America. Lake Wobegon is peopled by well-meaning, convention-bound, stoic Minnesota Lutherans where the occasional faux pas spices up the latest gossip in a quaint and amusing way. I enjoyed the whole conceit; my husband hated it! But that's not the point. It never occurred to me that we didn't all share that cultural reference point, perhaps because of Prairie Home Companion's longevity.
But then I heard an anecdote David Simon, the showrunner for The Wire, tells. He's driving a 15-year old drug dealer from Baltimore to New York for a pitch. The hip-hop station on the car radio fades out to be replaced by Prairie Home Companion. The drug dealer is not merely dismayed but baffled. Simon used the incident in his show (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/ar... ). The anecdote is a reminder of our fragmented cultural assumptions, and this was long before Trump.
The book follows the idiosyncrasies of the good folk of Lake Wobegone. Two events set the plot in motion. Evelyn Frances Powell (b. 1923) dies peacefully in her sleep after an evening of fun with the girls at the Moonlight Bay supper club. Meanwhile, Debbie Ditmer, former any '60's counter culture movement you can name disciple and presently the queen of an aroma therapy for pets empire is returning home with visions of a California-style extravaganza wedding.
The writing is filled with the familiar Prairie Home Companion tropes: puns and earnest ditties poured into folksy somnolent prose. Evelyn's husband Jack, after over 40 years of marriage becomes obsessed with a teen porn actress named Candy Disch. Debbie's beau is the CEO of an executive private jet leasing service called Shoo-Fly. The name Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery signals that this is that impossibility, a town unmoved by slick marketing. However, Keillor is also a great writer and offers up some choice gems. Evelyn endures the obligatory pieties when Jack finally passes: “She sat in church for his funeral, listening to him eulogized and hymns sung over him about eternal rest, like layers of whipped cream on a burnt sausage, and put him in the ground and went home and had a cup of coffee.” (p.29)
Keillor immerses us in the problems of his protagonists, Evelyn's grieving alcoholic daughter Barbara and gossip-magnet prodigal daughter Debbie Ditmer who is shocked at the (humorously described) declining faculties of her aged parents. The leisurely pacing is very deliberate. It all leads somewhere, and I won't say anything more in order to avoid spoilers.
I didn't think I'd like this book, but I did. I actually laughed out loud. This was a selection of our local book club.
To be honest, I was initially skeptical of this book. For 42 years Garrison Keillor narrated with affectionately benign humor the dooings of the denizens of Lake Wobegon, a stand-in for a mythical small-town America. Lake Wobegon is peopled by well-meaning, convention-bound, stoic Minnesota Lutherans where the occasional faux pas spices up the latest gossip in a quaint and amusing way. I enjoyed the whole conceit; my husband hated it! But that's not the point. It never occurred to me that we didn't all share that cultural reference point, perhaps because of Prairie Home Companion's longevity.
But then I heard an anecdote David Simon, the showrunner for The Wire, tells. He's driving a 15-year old drug dealer from Baltimore to New York for a pitch. The hip-hop station on the car radio fades out to be replaced by Prairie Home Companion. The drug dealer is not merely dismayed but baffled. Simon used the incident in his show (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/ar... ). The anecdote is a reminder of our fragmented cultural assumptions, and this was long before Trump.
The book follows the idiosyncrasies of the good folk of Lake Wobegone. Two events set the plot in motion. Evelyn Frances Powell (b. 1923) dies peacefully in her sleep after an evening of fun with the girls at the Moonlight Bay supper club. Meanwhile, Debbie Ditmer, former any '60's counter culture movement you can name disciple and presently the queen of an aroma therapy for pets empire is returning home with visions of a California-style extravaganza wedding.
The writing is filled with the familiar Prairie Home Companion tropes: puns and earnest ditties poured into folksy somnolent prose. Evelyn's husband Jack, after over 40 years of marriage becomes obsessed with a teen porn actress named Candy Disch. Debbie's beau is the CEO of an executive private jet leasing service called Shoo-Fly. The name Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery signals that this is that impossibility, a town unmoved by slick marketing. However, Keillor is also a great writer and offers up some choice gems. Evelyn endures the obligatory pieties when Jack finally passes: “She sat in church for his funeral, listening to him eulogized and hymns sung over him about eternal rest, like layers of whipped cream on a burnt sausage, and put him in the ground and went home and had a cup of coffee.” (p.29)
Keillor immerses us in the problems of his protagonists, Evelyn's grieving alcoholic daughter Barbara and gossip-magnet prodigal daughter Debbie Ditmer who is shocked at the (humorously described) declining faculties of her aged parents. The leisurely pacing is very deliberate. It all leads somewhere, and I won't say anything more in order to avoid spoilers.
I didn't think I'd like this book, but I did. I actually laughed out loud. This was a selection of our local book club.
June 29, 2009
A schizophrenic little title, feeling somewhat like it was written by the lovechild of Jack Kerouac and Martha Stewart, Pontoon is a dryly hysterical story from NPR's very own Garrison Keillor. I'd never read anything of his before, only heard his radio show, and was surprised to find how smoothly the transition from one medium to the next went. The writing style is suited to his manner of speech perfectly, and it's easy to hear Garrison filling in for your standard inner narrator without much effort. Very approachable and friendly, it is very easy to settle in for a chapter and come away with the half the book gone.
The story itself concerns the death of a nice old lady who lived a happy Lutheran life prior to her golden years, at which point she decided to throw caution to the wind and began doing all the things in life she should have done decades and decades ago. Upon her demise, her secrets spill and her friends and family adapt as best they can to these shocking revelations in standard Wobegon fashion (generally poorly and panicky, with a few upstanding exceptions and a couple Honorable Mentions). The writing is charming and sweet and personal as Garrison rattles off cozy, quiet details of life with the kind of expertise in visual writing a long and madly successful radio career can provide. The characters are the kind of believably neurotic wackos we all know, love, and almost certainly are, and earn bonus realism points by having well over half the cast be middle-aged and yet still managing raunchy hormone-driven segments every now and again. Yes, you still have sex when you're over 50. No, don't worry, he's not so explicit you'll have to imagine too much.
ANYway, it's a marvelous read for anyone either struggling to find themselves in a cold, sterile world OR for anyone (like me) who's burned out on the whole manic process and is wondering if there's a happy middle ground out there you can settle in, where people can be Sane AND Nice AND Polite. It's the best apologetic work for the happy boring liberal I've ever come across, and it manages to be thoroughly uplifting and cheery and romantic without betraying its roots as a perfectly believable story. If you're a fan of the radio show and are okay with the rating jumping from PG to PG-13, give it a looksee, I guarantee you'll like what you find. For everyone else, we've got a talented imagination working in an easily approachable and quick read here. I assure you it could be much worse.
The story itself concerns the death of a nice old lady who lived a happy Lutheran life prior to her golden years, at which point she decided to throw caution to the wind and began doing all the things in life she should have done decades and decades ago. Upon her demise, her secrets spill and her friends and family adapt as best they can to these shocking revelations in standard Wobegon fashion (generally poorly and panicky, with a few upstanding exceptions and a couple Honorable Mentions). The writing is charming and sweet and personal as Garrison rattles off cozy, quiet details of life with the kind of expertise in visual writing a long and madly successful radio career can provide. The characters are the kind of believably neurotic wackos we all know, love, and almost certainly are, and earn bonus realism points by having well over half the cast be middle-aged and yet still managing raunchy hormone-driven segments every now and again. Yes, you still have sex when you're over 50. No, don't worry, he's not so explicit you'll have to imagine too much.
ANYway, it's a marvelous read for anyone either struggling to find themselves in a cold, sterile world OR for anyone (like me) who's burned out on the whole manic process and is wondering if there's a happy middle ground out there you can settle in, where people can be Sane AND Nice AND Polite. It's the best apologetic work for the happy boring liberal I've ever come across, and it manages to be thoroughly uplifting and cheery and romantic without betraying its roots as a perfectly believable story. If you're a fan of the radio show and are okay with the rating jumping from PG to PG-13, give it a looksee, I guarantee you'll like what you find. For everyone else, we've got a talented imagination working in an easily approachable and quick read here. I assure you it could be much worse.
January 28, 2008
I'm a huge fan of Keillor and his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. My favorite weekly piece from the show is The News from Lake Wobegon. Keillor has written (I think) a few books on the fictional Minnesota town that lies somewhere between the Twin Cities and St. Cloud.
The stories are reflective, often funny and always very moving. Keillor is a fascinating storyteller, and his voice aches with nostalgia. When my aunt gave me Pontoon, I was excited to read a long story about the town, rather than hearing a seven-minute snippet.
Keillor paints a picture of a town stymied by Lutheran conservatism and Catholic guilt where the people are as diverse and interesting as any small US town. The story is a fairly continuous one that circles around the death of a woman and the way that her daughter, grandson, lover and family mourn her passing. Side stories slip in and out as the town itself feels the woman's loss.
I expected humor, but I wasn't disappointed to read a novel that was less laugh-out-loud hilarious and more about the funny, sad and crazy things that happen to most int heir day-to-day lives. The story isn't all happy, all depressing or all anything else. It's just about peoples lives and the way they live them in a town like Lake Wobegon. I loved it.
As a side note: the book scores extra points from me, as I'm Minnesotan. Many of the places referenced are places I've been to or know of, including a small lake my grandparents used to live on.
The stories are reflective, often funny and always very moving. Keillor is a fascinating storyteller, and his voice aches with nostalgia. When my aunt gave me Pontoon, I was excited to read a long story about the town, rather than hearing a seven-minute snippet.
Keillor paints a picture of a town stymied by Lutheran conservatism and Catholic guilt where the people are as diverse and interesting as any small US town. The story is a fairly continuous one that circles around the death of a woman and the way that her daughter, grandson, lover and family mourn her passing. Side stories slip in and out as the town itself feels the woman's loss.
I expected humor, but I wasn't disappointed to read a novel that was less laugh-out-loud hilarious and more about the funny, sad and crazy things that happen to most int heir day-to-day lives. The story isn't all happy, all depressing or all anything else. It's just about peoples lives and the way they live them in a town like Lake Wobegon. I loved it.
As a side note: the book scores extra points from me, as I'm Minnesotan. Many of the places referenced are places I've been to or know of, including a small lake my grandparents used to live on.
March 12, 2022
Having been a fan of A Prairie Home Companion for years, I was excited to pick up this title while shopping with a good friend at a huge book sale in Austin.
It sat on my shelf for quite a while, but recently worked its way to the top of my TBR list.
Today, I read the last page, having truly dragged myself through it.
There were funny parts, but instead of being delighted with Mr. Keillor’s witty, radio style humor, I became a little disgusted with his forced mention (and flippant language) of something sexual on nearly every page.
Ugh. I’m glad to be done with this book, and while I would typically rather say nothing than to say something not nice, in the event that I can spare someone paying to purchase Pontoon, I’ll opt to be honest and move on down the road.
It sat on my shelf for quite a while, but recently worked its way to the top of my TBR list.
Today, I read the last page, having truly dragged myself through it.
There were funny parts, but instead of being delighted with Mr. Keillor’s witty, radio style humor, I became a little disgusted with his forced mention (and flippant language) of something sexual on nearly every page.
Ugh. I’m glad to be done with this book, and while I would typically rather say nothing than to say something not nice, in the event that I can spare someone paying to purchase Pontoon, I’ll opt to be honest and move on down the road.
September 4, 2016
Garrison Keillor's voice is the only thing that can save this depressing drudgery. And, in the end, it didn't.
July 18, 2009
My dad used to play Garrison Keillor tapes for our family when we went on our car trips. My brother and I loved them--the Living Flag story where everyone in town has to be involved to get it done but then nobody can see it so they have to take turns going up to the top of the hospital to get a look, the over-dramatized story of Jim the Ant, the African safari gone awry. Keillor's voice was soothing and strong. We clung to his deep breaths, not being able to wait for what was next.
I had never read anything by him until Pontoon. I wanted to quote half of it, it was that hilarious and unique.
Keillor takes the time to really introduce you to every character so you understand who they are and all the little things in life that motivate them. Evelyn is the first and she passes away all too quickly but thank God she asked to be cremated and her remains dropped in the lake in a hollowed out bowling ball. It's almost too much for the good Lutherans to handle.
The drama is understated and delicious. Keillor's subtle humor is enough to make you burst out laughing no matter where you are. And the showdown at the end is absolutely ridiculous.
General consensus: The most satisfying humorous book I've read since Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
I had never read anything by him until Pontoon. I wanted to quote half of it, it was that hilarious and unique.
Keillor takes the time to really introduce you to every character so you understand who they are and all the little things in life that motivate them. Evelyn is the first and she passes away all too quickly but thank God she asked to be cremated and her remains dropped in the lake in a hollowed out bowling ball. It's almost too much for the good Lutherans to handle.
The drama is understated and delicious. Keillor's subtle humor is enough to make you burst out laughing no matter where you are. And the showdown at the end is absolutely ridiculous.
General consensus: The most satisfying humorous book I've read since Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
November 26, 2024
Keillor fans expect his long winding narratives to go in convoluted directions and somehow usually tie back to the opening.It is clear from this book’s opening that two Lake Wobegon events, a memorial and a wedding, are headed disastrously towards each other. Complications are obvious to the reader, and bordering on the absurd. The laugh out loud ending is the punchline to a joke we have been waiting for since page one.
May 15, 2024
DNF and would not recommend. Oddly a large amount of sexual content, and there wasn’t nearly enough charm as is in Prairie Home Companion.
October 23, 2023
If you remember the old "Prairie Home Companion" radio show, this book is just like one of Keillor's monologues. They all begin with "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon..." Only this one is longer and it has a smidge of sex and nudity.
I don't know how to describe the people of Lake Wobegon. They're just like you and me, only nuttier. At least, nuttier than some of us.
As you meander through all the seemingly unrelated anecdotes, you'll find yourself saying, "She said what?" and "Did he really do that?" Suddenly, you'll find yourself in this completely absurd final scene where all the unrelated circumstances come together in a final catastrophic, hilarious series of accidents where everyone gets what's coming to them...in a sense. How does Keillor lead us down this quiet, uneventful, ordinary path and end up with Elvis and 24 agnostic Danish pastors and a flaming balloon and giant ducks and....? Go figure. If you need a good laugh, read this book.
I don't know how to describe the people of Lake Wobegon. They're just like you and me, only nuttier. At least, nuttier than some of us.
As you meander through all the seemingly unrelated anecdotes, you'll find yourself saying, "She said what?" and "Did he really do that?" Suddenly, you'll find yourself in this completely absurd final scene where all the unrelated circumstances come together in a final catastrophic, hilarious series of accidents where everyone gets what's coming to them...in a sense. How does Keillor lead us down this quiet, uneventful, ordinary path and end up with Elvis and 24 agnostic Danish pastors and a flaming balloon and giant ducks and....? Go figure. If you need a good laugh, read this book.
April 2, 2009
I remember watching the movie Prairie Home Companion, and being surprised that what I perceived as "wholesome" was really just "small town", and coming to the realization that "small town" does not equal "clean". So not only is there a surprising bit of crude in this one, but the beginning was also very reminiscent of that movie. However, it's also got a quirky charm, and was fun enough to keep me entertained.
I think one of the reasons I liked this one is because I lived in North Dakota for a handful of years, among the same people described in the book as disposed to gloom, dark Lutherans who pitch down the rocky slope of melancholy and lie there for days ... waiting for someone, usually Evelyn, to ... comfort them with dessert. A people waiting for the other shoe to drop. Phlegmatists. Stoics. Good eaters who went for recipes that start out "Brown a pound of ground beef and six strips of bacon and in a separate pan melt a pound of butter".
There are also some great one-liners in this, like this one: Life is a feast and most people are starving.
And then there's both the charm of more midwest descriptions as well as the combination of exasperation and love most of us feel for our families: Our people settled out on the prairie because they like straight lines and neat corners. I know these people. I'm related to some of them. And sometimes I'd like to wring their necks.
I think one of the reasons I liked this one is because I lived in North Dakota for a handful of years, among the same people described in the book as disposed to gloom, dark Lutherans who pitch down the rocky slope of melancholy and lie there for days ... waiting for someone, usually Evelyn, to ... comfort them with dessert. A people waiting for the other shoe to drop. Phlegmatists. Stoics. Good eaters who went for recipes that start out "Brown a pound of ground beef and six strips of bacon and in a separate pan melt a pound of butter".
There are also some great one-liners in this, like this one: Life is a feast and most people are starving.
And then there's both the charm of more midwest descriptions as well as the combination of exasperation and love most of us feel for our families: Our people settled out on the prairie because they like straight lines and neat corners. I know these people. I'm related to some of them. And sometimes I'd like to wring their necks.
December 12, 2007
As a fan of Keillor's radio show I thought I'd give his novel a try. I'm also a Lutheran who always giggles at his references of "Lutheran church life."
The story has one of the best first lines:
Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.
How great of a starter is that? The story tells about a daughter coming home and finding her mother has died. She quickly learns her mother had a few secrets and instructions on how to proceed with the funeral.
In addition to this story, you have another family, whose wayward older daughter returns to get married at her parents home, well, not exactly a wedding but a commitment ceremony because the groom doesn't really need a paper to proclaim his love. The daughter who couldn't get out of Lake Wobegon fast enough now finds that the tiny town is what she's always wanted.
But don't think these two stories end in any canned fashion. It ends with a ruckus that in true Keillor manner has all the visual effects one needs to see themself IN Lake Wobegon.
The story has one of the best first lines:
Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.
How great of a starter is that? The story tells about a daughter coming home and finding her mother has died. She quickly learns her mother had a few secrets and instructions on how to proceed with the funeral.
In addition to this story, you have another family, whose wayward older daughter returns to get married at her parents home, well, not exactly a wedding but a commitment ceremony because the groom doesn't really need a paper to proclaim his love. The daughter who couldn't get out of Lake Wobegon fast enough now finds that the tiny town is what she's always wanted.
But don't think these two stories end in any canned fashion. It ends with a ruckus that in true Keillor manner has all the visual effects one needs to see themself IN Lake Wobegon.
May 17, 2016
There's just nobody like Garrison Keillor! This book has everything we love about Lake Wobegon--a feisty old lady with a secret life who wants her ashes to be buried in a bowling ball; a goofy bride who made a fortune in aromatherapy for pets; a disgruntled daughter with a drinking problem; warring siblings and visiting Danish clergy. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty! When the ridiculously lavish wedding is called off, but not all the participants are informed, and it collides with the internment of the old lady in the bowling ball, everything runs amok. The collision of a naked hang glider, an Elvis impersonator, a couple of giant mechanical ducks, and the horrified citizens of Lake Wobegon is as hilarious as only Garrison Keillor can make it. I listened to the Audible version which Keillor narrated in his unmistakable style and embellished with piano interludes.
May 5, 2008
I love Garrison Keillor so he's getting 5 stars no matter what. So far this book is great, although the humor you get in his radio show doesn't come across the same way. I guess that's bound to happen when you change mediums.
The book is about carpe diem. Living your life to the fullest because life is short. It's based around this woman's funeral and how her family discovers this other life she lived where she was a free spirit. Traveling places with her boyfriend at the age of 70 or something. Instead of a funeral she wants her ashes put into a bowling ball that her longtime boyfriend gave her. So the bowling ball has to be hollowed out and then dropped into the middle of Lake Wobegon, which I believe is going to be done by her grandson para-sailing behind a motorboat.
The book is about carpe diem. Living your life to the fullest because life is short. It's based around this woman's funeral and how her family discovers this other life she lived where she was a free spirit. Traveling places with her boyfriend at the age of 70 or something. Instead of a funeral she wants her ashes put into a bowling ball that her longtime boyfriend gave her. So the bowling ball has to be hollowed out and then dropped into the middle of Lake Wobegon, which I believe is going to be done by her grandson para-sailing behind a motorboat.
January 3, 2024
I listened to A Prarie Home Companion starting about 1980. I really tried to catch it every week. Certainly from the mid-80s until it finally went off the air in the 2000s, I listened to it every weekend, sometimes twice. I saw it personally at Radio City and Town Hall. Lake Woebegon was like my hometown; I grew up in a German town on Long Island, also filled with Catholics and Lutherans.
I remember listening to the broadcast where a similar story to Pontoon was told. I recall the Danish ministers on a Pontoon boat. I howled with laughter while making dinner for my family. What this book reveals, however, is that love and forgiveness is the basis of everything. We just need to love one another. Life is messy. All is forgiven.
I remember listening to the broadcast where a similar story to Pontoon was told. I recall the Danish ministers on a Pontoon boat. I howled with laughter while making dinner for my family. What this book reveals, however, is that love and forgiveness is the basis of everything. We just need to love one another. Life is messy. All is forgiven.
December 20, 2007
a very dangerous book ... I fell out of bed laughing
a memorial service and wedding gone awry ... the perfect ending brought a group of Lutheran pastors from Denmark
makes me want to go to the video shop and rent the movie ... can't remember the name, but there was Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin (they're mentioned in this book as well)
a memorial service and wedding gone awry ... the perfect ending brought a group of Lutheran pastors from Denmark
makes me want to go to the video shop and rent the movie ... can't remember the name, but there was Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin (they're mentioned in this book as well)
February 11, 2008
Anyone who loves Prairie Home Companion (radio show) will enjoy Pontoon. In typical Keillor storytelling tone, it meanders heartland style, rambling from unique personalities to oddball occurrences until it concludes in a hilarious ending that you should have seen coming but didn't! All that’s missing is a piece of rhubarb pie!
September 8, 2023
DNF - I just couldn’t really get into this one. It wasn’t really what I thought it would be, and the characters felt like caricatures of what a lot of people expect midwesterners to be. The humor wasn’t that funny to me, and a little more crass than I expected. Just not the book for me.
March 27, 2014
I simply can not capture the magic and humor conveyed by Keillor as he tells a story whenI am reading those same words on a page.
no-thanks
March 2, 2023I like his short stories but there was just too much uncomfortable content and cynical criticism to make this novel worth it.
July 14, 2017
A Review of the Audiobook
Published by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books in 2007
Read by Garrison Keillor
Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes
Unabridged
Evelyn Peterson is the town iconoclast in many ways. She is an active member of many town institutions, but she also is one of the few that questions any of the cherished beliefs of the town of Lake Wobegon. But, she is also quite elderly and she has passed away in bed.
Her daughter Barbara, a cafeteria lunch lady and often the opposite of her mother, discovered her body and a note that details how she wants her body to be disposed of. This note kicks off the a great deal of the rest of the story. Throw in a woman who made it big in California returning to Lake Wobegon for her wedding, a visiting delegation of Lutheran ministers from Denmark, the discovery of a great number of family secrets that were held by Evelyn, a really stinky stray dog, a glider, a bowling ball urn and an Elvis impersonator and you have the recipe for a day that Lake Wobegon will never forget.
This book should have been...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2017/...
Published by HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books in 2007
Read by Garrison Keillor
Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes
Unabridged
Evelyn Peterson is the town iconoclast in many ways. She is an active member of many town institutions, but she also is one of the few that questions any of the cherished beliefs of the town of Lake Wobegon. But, she is also quite elderly and she has passed away in bed.
Her daughter Barbara, a cafeteria lunch lady and often the opposite of her mother, discovered her body and a note that details how she wants her body to be disposed of. This note kicks off the a great deal of the rest of the story. Throw in a woman who made it big in California returning to Lake Wobegon for her wedding, a visiting delegation of Lutheran ministers from Denmark, the discovery of a great number of family secrets that were held by Evelyn, a really stinky stray dog, a glider, a bowling ball urn and an Elvis impersonator and you have the recipe for a day that Lake Wobegon will never forget.
This book should have been...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2017/...
August 2, 2024
Normally, Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone tales are warm, folksy stories with dry humor about mishaps in a small, conservative town in North Dakota. The people there are mostly hard-working, good-hearted, and religious; but they don't always carefully think through what they are about to do, and they love to gossip. This particular tale differs from every other Lake Woebegone tale I've read because it includes a lot of sexual details. The point is to make people consider stepping outside their normal boundaries, but the book does this by focusing on the death, travels, and sexual adventures of the main characters. This makes its dry humor more morbid and off-color than Keillor's typical fare, and this may off put many of Keillor's regular readers.
June 19, 2021
3.5 stars. Kind of funny, mostly ridiculous. The poor lady was just trying to follow her mother’s unexpected wishes. I wonder what I would have done if I had found a letter from my mother that said cremate her, put her in a bowling ball, and drop her in the lake. I honestly don’t know. I guess maybe I would have done it. I would probably have been more dramatic about it than poor Barbara. I actually felt kind of sorry for her. Her brothers were no help at all and her son was just a big goof ball.
And I’m kind of left scratching my head over the ending.
I mean… I guess if you’re a Garrison Keillor fan it was an okay story. But I still think it was pretty silly.
And I’m kind of left scratching my head over the ending.
I mean… I guess if you’re a Garrison Keillor fan it was an okay story. But I still think it was pretty silly.
September 6, 2025
I enjoyed the structure of this book - each chapter centring a different character. There are some nuanced descriptions of the details of life’s ordinariness which make them extraordinary. And there were a few laugh-out-loud moments (and a few cringe-out-loud moments too).
As an avid Lake Woebegone fan, I noticed that some passages felt familiar enough to be almost repetitive. So there’s a feeling of weariness and not-quite-maturity in the joints of this story which hold it back from rising as high as it could.
I listened to the book on Audible and I recommend hearing it in Keillor’s voice.
As an avid Lake Woebegone fan, I noticed that some passages felt familiar enough to be almost repetitive. So there’s a feeling of weariness and not-quite-maturity in the joints of this story which hold it back from rising as high as it could.
I listened to the book on Audible and I recommend hearing it in Keillor’s voice.
gave-up-on
April 24, 2017In only read a few chapters into this book, so I will not rate it or add a detailed review. I just couldn't get into it. I think a part of it was that I was expecting it to be more like what I've heard on Keillor's radio show before he retired. For example, the book is more sexual than the show. Also, I find myself more in the middle of the messages and personalities of the book. Some of it appealed to me with my beliefs, but a lot if it did not. So I only made it a few chapters in.
June 7, 2020
3 1/2 stars. I love Garrison Keillor & love all the Minnesota references because they are so familiar to me. I was losing interest a bit by the end & my mind would wander & I'd have to go back in the book over & over. This one was a mixed bag for me.
October 28, 2024
3.5. Always funny, but a lot of rehashing of older ideas.
July 5, 2019
I have enjoyed Keillor's radio shows for many years now. His fictional little town has caused no end to our laughter and pleasure over the years and it was even more brilliant to watch the merry people in action. It is easy to recognize the stereotypes of various kinds of people just trying to make their way through life and, for the most part, it is lovely to take part in this book, feeling sad along with those who seem to follow the path of personal ruin and others who seem to quietly live out of the sight of their neighbors, to a degree. With that said, I felt that this book added not to a sense of fun, but was much of the rigid mindset of those who deny that lives can be profitable unless they are secretly involved in the breaking away into hedonistic pleasure.
Bad theology is a great part of these people in Lake Wobegone. This book begins with an angel visiting an older lady who has been kicking up her heels in her later life and putting old stern and stoic church behaviors behind. Throughout the book, we find that her behaviors have been more extensive than first thought and the family tries to deal with that upsetting fact. Everyone is a caricature of bad behavior, from the Lutherans who take on the morality of the world and also the business of everyone else to the snotty Danish Lutheran ministers who do not believe. We have a woman who returns from California after making a fortune accidentally on purpose and her plans for a watered down marriage ceremony because her boyfriend is unwilling to commit and then a flying Elvis and the dead woman's grandson creating typically foolish ideas but also dealing with his great insecurities and finally the dead woman's daughter who decides it is time to stop drinking and cease believing because God hasn't made her life to her specifications.
In toto, the entire book ceased being funny and felt like it was poking at a bad sore. There are two kinds of people in the book, those who have shunned religion in the first place and seem to make their lives miserable and then those who endorse religion and yet make their lives miserable because it's just one big miserable pot of people who screw things up and God has nothing to do with it. Years ago when I read Bertrand Russell, I thought that being an agnostic was quite advanced. I adopted such thinking because, I reasoned, God couldn't fault us if we were doing our best to understand but just couldn't quite make the transition. Over the years, I have changed slightly: an agnostic is just an atheist with a college education.
I can think of no better time in my life than to object to the belief that people go to heaven when they don't believe in Christ's resurrection, much less follow Christ's path. They don't. Pascal said, Nothing more surely underlines an extreme weakness of mind than the failure to recognize the unhappiness of someone without God. Let us then begin.
This book made me think of 1 Corinthians:
Every so often, someone will cite the Bible to me explaining why I have been disobeying God and, for the most part, that someone will have an ideology in mind as well as not understanding the Bible. The most often cited verse is that about judging others and I have given up trying to explain why it doesn't mean that judgment of others should be left to God. As this book is a sad commentary about the lack of spiritual faith in the world, not only in this town, it suggests that people are irretrievably harmed in trying to follow organized religion and that sometimes getting away from it will make them admirable people. Perhaps some organize religion is detrimental to people. I once attended a church which was almost destroyed by gossip, mostly about church members doing something sinful. For example there was a group of men who met with the pastor because they recognized their difficulties with pornography. The same thing happened with a lovely young woman who met with the pastor because of problems in her marriage. The self-righteous church gossipers didn't think those people were really Christians.
In fact, those gossips would have killed that church had it not been for a visiting revival minister who preached directly on that issue. I remember that week and how that man preached the glory of God on 4 occasions and he called them out on it as if he had witnessed the gossip himself. As a result, the congregation ceased segregating themselves and began to work together in Christ. It was the real movement of God through the ranks.
Yet I can understand when there are those who look around and are disappointed with God's movement; he doesn't make things better for believers and he doesn't keep us from harming ourselves or harming one another. I have lived around Lutheran stoicism and I know the people in this book. I also know that there are believers in the church and I know they work behind the scenes for good.
Lest we forget, the principle stated in 1 Corinthians is Paul is explaining that Christ either died and was resurrected or He didn't. That's up to us to believe or not. But the division that exists is quite remarkable as to believers and unbelievers. When people say to me that they don't believe the Bible and that there is no God who would willingly send people to hell, I ask them if God is perfectly good. When they say that He is, but they find it a bit too difficult to follow His tenets because they get in the way with what they want to do for fun in life, I ask them which of them, God or the complainer, knows about our good better, the creator or the created. It comes down to the issue that some people just believe that how they see it is much easier to follow than the way God sees things. I am not here to argue which anyone chooses, but to suggest that believing or not believing divides you into two camps....and the one is detrimental to your life with God, especially your life after you die.
This book was a lot of fun if one reads it as a kind of inevitable result of the three different groups, much like knowing that the trains will all meet at a certain point. I enjoyed the depiction of life in the little town. It just seemed to suggest that there wasn't much hope in life besides running away and doing humanistic things.
Bad theology is a great part of these people in Lake Wobegone. This book begins with an angel visiting an older lady who has been kicking up her heels in her later life and putting old stern and stoic church behaviors behind. Throughout the book, we find that her behaviors have been more extensive than first thought and the family tries to deal with that upsetting fact. Everyone is a caricature of bad behavior, from the Lutherans who take on the morality of the world and also the business of everyone else to the snotty Danish Lutheran ministers who do not believe. We have a woman who returns from California after making a fortune accidentally on purpose and her plans for a watered down marriage ceremony because her boyfriend is unwilling to commit and then a flying Elvis and the dead woman's grandson creating typically foolish ideas but also dealing with his great insecurities and finally the dead woman's daughter who decides it is time to stop drinking and cease believing because God hasn't made her life to her specifications.
In toto, the entire book ceased being funny and felt like it was poking at a bad sore. There are two kinds of people in the book, those who have shunned religion in the first place and seem to make their lives miserable and then those who endorse religion and yet make their lives miserable because it's just one big miserable pot of people who screw things up and God has nothing to do with it. Years ago when I read Bertrand Russell, I thought that being an agnostic was quite advanced. I adopted such thinking because, I reasoned, God couldn't fault us if we were doing our best to understand but just couldn't quite make the transition. Over the years, I have changed slightly: an agnostic is just an atheist with a college education.
I can think of no better time in my life than to object to the belief that people go to heaven when they don't believe in Christ's resurrection, much less follow Christ's path. They don't. Pascal said, Nothing more surely underlines an extreme weakness of mind than the failure to recognize the unhappiness of someone without God. Let us then begin.
This book made me think of 1 Corinthians:
Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Every so often, someone will cite the Bible to me explaining why I have been disobeying God and, for the most part, that someone will have an ideology in mind as well as not understanding the Bible. The most often cited verse is that about judging others and I have given up trying to explain why it doesn't mean that judgment of others should be left to God. As this book is a sad commentary about the lack of spiritual faith in the world, not only in this town, it suggests that people are irretrievably harmed in trying to follow organized religion and that sometimes getting away from it will make them admirable people. Perhaps some organize religion is detrimental to people. I once attended a church which was almost destroyed by gossip, mostly about church members doing something sinful. For example there was a group of men who met with the pastor because they recognized their difficulties with pornography. The same thing happened with a lovely young woman who met with the pastor because of problems in her marriage. The self-righteous church gossipers didn't think those people were really Christians.
In fact, those gossips would have killed that church had it not been for a visiting revival minister who preached directly on that issue. I remember that week and how that man preached the glory of God on 4 occasions and he called them out on it as if he had witnessed the gossip himself. As a result, the congregation ceased segregating themselves and began to work together in Christ. It was the real movement of God through the ranks.
Yet I can understand when there are those who look around and are disappointed with God's movement; he doesn't make things better for believers and he doesn't keep us from harming ourselves or harming one another. I have lived around Lutheran stoicism and I know the people in this book. I also know that there are believers in the church and I know they work behind the scenes for good.
Lest we forget, the principle stated in 1 Corinthians is Paul is explaining that Christ either died and was resurrected or He didn't. That's up to us to believe or not. But the division that exists is quite remarkable as to believers and unbelievers. When people say to me that they don't believe the Bible and that there is no God who would willingly send people to hell, I ask them if God is perfectly good. When they say that He is, but they find it a bit too difficult to follow His tenets because they get in the way with what they want to do for fun in life, I ask them which of them, God or the complainer, knows about our good better, the creator or the created. It comes down to the issue that some people just believe that how they see it is much easier to follow than the way God sees things. I am not here to argue which anyone chooses, but to suggest that believing or not believing divides you into two camps....and the one is detrimental to your life with God, especially your life after you die.
This book was a lot of fun if one reads it as a kind of inevitable result of the three different groups, much like knowing that the trains will all meet at a certain point. I enjoyed the depiction of life in the little town. It just seemed to suggest that there wasn't much hope in life besides running away and doing humanistic things.
October 20, 2007
From Booklist
When the angel of death came for Evelyn Peterson, she didn't know that Debbie Detmer would be back in Lake Wobegon for the first time in ages to be married, kinda, in a big lakeside ceremony on a pontoon boat with, among other things, a parachuting Elvis impersonator and a hot-air balloon—all on the day Evelyn's memorial, also at the lake, would be held. Of course, how could she know that? Nobody else in town knew Debbie was coming, except for her parents, and given how Walter's been since that fall in the bathroom, maybe only Mrs. D. could be said to have known. During the days 'twixt death and marriage, lots happens. Barbara, Evelyn's daughter, learns that her mother hadn't been visiting relatives on her many out-of-town jaunts; she'd been partying with Raoul, the man she should have married. Barbara's son Kyle decides to honor Grandma's wish to have her ashes deposited in the lake by dropping them while parasailing. Now consider the possibilities with faux Elvis, balloon, and Kyle fleeting over the lake simultaneously . . . It's just the capper to a hyperbusy slice of small-town life of the sort that Keillor regularly exploits so hilariously and affectingly, and the moral of which may be that we'd all best be humble. Only comedian of horrors Christopher Moore, in his tales of Pine Cove, California, rivals Keillor as a provincial farceur.
This says it all---had me laughing out loud. I could just picture what was happening.
When the angel of death came for Evelyn Peterson, she didn't know that Debbie Detmer would be back in Lake Wobegon for the first time in ages to be married, kinda, in a big lakeside ceremony on a pontoon boat with, among other things, a parachuting Elvis impersonator and a hot-air balloon—all on the day Evelyn's memorial, also at the lake, would be held. Of course, how could she know that? Nobody else in town knew Debbie was coming, except for her parents, and given how Walter's been since that fall in the bathroom, maybe only Mrs. D. could be said to have known. During the days 'twixt death and marriage, lots happens. Barbara, Evelyn's daughter, learns that her mother hadn't been visiting relatives on her many out-of-town jaunts; she'd been partying with Raoul, the man she should have married. Barbara's son Kyle decides to honor Grandma's wish to have her ashes deposited in the lake by dropping them while parasailing. Now consider the possibilities with faux Elvis, balloon, and Kyle fleeting over the lake simultaneously . . . It's just the capper to a hyperbusy slice of small-town life of the sort that Keillor regularly exploits so hilariously and affectingly, and the moral of which may be that we'd all best be humble. Only comedian of horrors Christopher Moore, in his tales of Pine Cove, California, rivals Keillor as a provincial farceur.
This says it all---had me laughing out loud. I could just picture what was happening.
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