Leaving Home [Paperback]

Garrison Keillor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1990

Revisit the beguiling comic world of Lake Wobegon. In the first collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Keillor tells readers ore about some of the people from Lake Wobegon Days and introduces some new faces. "Leaving Home is a book of exceptional charm . . . delightful . . . genuinely touching".--The Wall Street Journal. Available in early December.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Home," in Keillor's fictional world, is Lake Wobegon (the "Gateway to Central Minnesota"), which the radio humorist introduced in print in Lake Wobegon Days. This collection of stories set in Lake Wobegon is taken from monologues performed on A Prairie Home Companion, Keillor's radio show; each one chronicles some kind of leave-taking or homecoming: trips to Minneapolis, high school graduations, attending the Minnesota State Fair, a waitress quitting her job at the Chatterbox Cafe, a boy joining the army, Father Emil retiring from Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, family members returning to Lake Wobegon for Christmas. In the last story, from Keillor's final show, the storyteller bids farewell to his beloved hometown. Keillor has a rare gift for celebrating and finding humor in commonplace events, and his affection for his characters and for small-town life shines through. These short narratives survive the transition from performance to print beautifully; they are spare, artfully crafted vignettes that will move readers as well as entertain them. Some tales are wildly hilarious, others gently poignantbut all are simply wonderful. 750,000 first printing; BOMC and QPBC main selections; first serial to the Atlantic.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

For the fans, here's a round-up of 36 monologues from Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show, which went off the air on June 13. The reader who is unacquainted with the show or with Keillor's best selling book Lake Wobegon Days may make little sense of these tales of ordinary, everyday events in the lives of unspectacular people living in the imaginary but wholly believable village of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota; but for the faithful, and there are hundreds of thousands such, this new book will be welcomed like a letter from the home town in which one is brought up to date on what relatives, friends, and others have been doing lately. For them the adventures never stale and the characters never bore. There is little danger that the book will gather dust in the library. A.J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Library & Information Sci e nce, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140131604
• ISBN-13: 978-0140131604
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garrison Keillor is the bestselling author of Lake Wobegon Days, Happy To Be Here, Leaving Home, We Are Still Married, Radio Romance, The Book of Guys and Wobegon Boy (available in Penguin Audiobook). He is the host of A Prairie Home Companion on American public radio and a contributor to Time magazine. He lives in Wisconsin and New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the best of the Lake Wobegon collections., August 10, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Leaving Home (Paperback)

Leaving Home is a collection of pieces about Lake Wobegon citizens who either do leave or dream of leaving. It has lots of the old favorites from "A Prairie Home Companion" (including "Homecoming," the monologue that most people seem to remember), somewhat rewritten as short stories. Funny, sometimes poignant, these are humor pieces at their best, with a surprising depth of characterization and the wonderful, slightly bemused, slightly awed voice of a master story teller. Of all the Lake Wobegon collections, this one is probably the most representative, because it is the most balanced. Belly laughs and a tear or two, although as Keillor insists, his view of Lake Wobegon really is NOT that nostalgic, and usually it's free of sentimentality

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read, but a better listen, September 27, 2000

By 

Devin Rambo - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leaving Home (Paperback)

Leaving Home is essentially a collection of transcripts of the popular News From Lake Wobegon segment that is the highlight of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor's live weekly radio show. For new readers of Keillor, it's an excellent introduction into the colorfully ordinary world of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, the fictional town that Keillor has made into a functional microcosm of the small-town heartland culture that too much of American society often views as inferior. For readers already exposed to Keillor, it's an extension of our acquaintanceship with the characters we've previously met in Lake Wobegon Days and on the radio show.

I think Keillor is undervalued in the world of American literature. What he has done with the Lake Wobegon books and stories, and with his radio show, is create a fully realized fictional world populated with flesh and blood people. And he has done so in a way that is touching and funny; we may laugh at his characters when they do something foolish or ill-advised, but the perspective that Keillor provides us ensures that we do so from a position of sympathy instead of superiority. The people in his stories may be small-town, but they are not small-minded. In some of his stories, Keillor examines the strong opinions they may have in favor of social values that some may deride as intolerant, but his focus on the decent, moral people at the core of the culture reminds us that although we may have different attitudes and lifestyles, we are connected by the common thread of frail humanity.

My one criticism isn't really a criticism at all: that it is always better, in my opinion, to hear Keillor read the material aloud than it is to read them on your own. His warm, rumbling bass voice is the perfect vessel through which to hear these stories. While he does not imbue the material with any undue drama, he is a master at fleshing out the subtle, gentle humor of his stories. Keillor has a huge amount of material available on audiotape, CD and digital media obtainable at places like audible.com, and it is those that I really recommend for those seeking the complete experience.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not what i expected... in a good way, November 13, 2001

By 

amandasan (seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leaving Home (Paperback)

I found this book in the apartment I moved into in Japan and read it only when I had run out of my own books and was waiting for more to arrive from Amazon. I was pleasantly surprised by Keillor's wit and insight. This isn't a book about small town people - these are stories about people. Keillor touches on some pretty major topics here. He is a wonderful storyteller. I found the stories both funny and touching and a bit edgier than what I expected. A great read!