Customer Reviews

WLT: A Radio Romance

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

We want to keep Garrison Keillor in the box he's made for himself. The prudish reviews below testify to that.

But, haven't you been listening? Keillor smokes Pall Malls. He likes to drink. His greatest aspiration as a young man was to hang out with the literary degeneracy in New York City, and he realized his dream.

You could say he made his tight-cornered bed and now he must lie in it, and you could be dead right. However, in this book, he decided to tell a dirty joke or two and see what the public said about it.

Myself, I liked it. In fact, I like WLT about the most of anything he's written. You get such an image of the other Keillor, who likes a drink and a smoke and a dirty joke. A sexist Keillor who thinks men and women should be attracted to one another and have sex now and again. It's just right.

That particular Keillor cannot survive today, though. The archetype is out of fashion to a fatal degree. He wants us to love it, but we've been too conditioned for other qualities. Strangely, these new qualities are just as loutish and brutal, but they're somehow acceptable.

Radio is dead, but we do have satellite...

You want yer prose style? We got yer prose style. You want your OUTRAGEOUS humor... um... read what happens when your top writer for live radio programming doesn't get enough sleep...

I laughed so hard, I couldn't breath.

His prose pacing is like a psychedelic journey: just when you think things are slowing down, you're already off on another wild excursion. He seemlessly accomplishes what Ken Kesey did somewhat awkwardly in Sometimes a Great Notion-- no slouch of a book in its OWN right.

If you're wondering where the Great American Novel has been hiding, wonder instead how someone as well known as Keillor could get away with writing something like this, only to have it languish in obscurity. If American literature is dead, it's only because Americans have COMPLETELY forgotten how to read.

(excuse my rant)

WLT is one of the most moving works I have ever read by Keillor. I read it when it first came out in hardback, and recently bought the audiobook, read by Keillor; it was like hearing it for the first time. Keillor's style of reading is so believable and enthralling, that I found myself leaving earlier for work in the morning so I could hear one whole side of the tape on the way. Listening to WLT as read by Keillor is a promise that you will laugh out loud, and a moment later weep as if you've lost your best friend. Amazing. I loved it! Deeply affecting!

"WLT" offers an entertaining blend of humor and pathos, with a memorable cast of characters. The story chronicles the life of a Midwestern radio station from the early days of radio to the advent of television, which brought about radio's downfall. "WLT" is a marvelous period piece which transports the reader back to radio's golden age which, in many respects, was also America's golden age. I would highly recommend this book to any reader, as it undoubtedly ranks among Keillor's best.

Garrison Keillor is better known for his Lake Wobegon stories, adapted from his radio monologues. These are charming enough, but I've always preferred his stories about radio, such as those found in "Happy to Be Here" (e.g., "WLT, the Edgar Era," "The Tip-Top Club," etc.).

In "WLT: a Radio Romance," Keillor reworks some of these stories into a novel telling the story of two Minneapolis restaurant owners who start a radio station to promote their struggling business, and see it through from the mid-1920's to the dawn of television - the Golden Age of Radio. Alongside this are tales of others, including a boy from rural North Dakota whose fascination with radio draws him, without his even knowing it, toward a career in broadcasting.

By Keillor's standards, this is a somewhat raunchy book. There is lots of strong language (more than enough to make a Minnesota mom blush), and planty of sexual shenanigans. But there is still a sweetness and an innocence that you might expect from Keillor. And the book is so well written, it really pulls you in. Of all Keillor's books, this one is easily my favorite.

I love this book, I've read it now several times; in fact, whenever I feel like a spiritual pick-me-up, I will turn to WLT. Soft without being mushy, moral without being preachy and out and out side splittingly funny. Even now, recalling the Dad Benson 'winging it' scene at the family kitchen table ("Yo clematis...what?") and the haemerroid afflicted announcer ("Why can't I hear the music you *******?"), I'm chuckling. I worked for a number of years in radio - after the golden age, well after it in fact - but I recognise behaviour, I recognise characters. An all-round excellent book.

I never laughed so hard!!! And then trying to fall asleep....I'd giggle some more! If you have a good imagination and a little sense of mischief, you will not be able to put it down. By far one of my favorite books.

"WLT" offers an entertaining blend of humor and pathos, with a memorable cast of characters. The story chronicles the life of a Midwestern radio station from the early days of radio to the advent of television, which brought about radio's downfall. "WLT" is a marvelous period piece which transports the reader back to radio's golden age which, in many respects, was also America's golden age. I would highly recommend this book to any reader, as it undoubtedly ranks among Keillor's best.

What a lovely book and what a lovely introduction to Mr Keillor's work. I bought this for 50 English pence from a second hand stall and didn't I get a good deal!! I can't conceive of the imagination required to write a book like this. The characters, the lives they've had and the conversations they have are all outstanding. This book is a funny and sad account of the early days of American radio where the only requirement to become a radio star was to know someone who already worked there. Amateurishness ruled!! the book paints a vivid and charming rendition of the days before disc jockeys (No disc jockeys??!! - I had no idea!) and the de-basing of popular radio. Thoroughly recommended

I've never listened to Prairie Home Companion, but from the little snippets I'd heard about it, I've always associated Garrison Keillor with a sort of relentless wholesomeness. The raciness of this book came as a complete surprise. In WLT, Keillor is giving his readers a glimpse of the more colorful side of working in radio, one that is highly entertaining.
The dirty jokes and the sex are fun to read, but my favorite parts of WLT are the tantalizing bits of the radio soap opera story lines. Any scene in which the plot of The Friendly Neighbor is featured is fascinating. The delightful cheesiness--did people really take these stories as seriously as it appears they did in the novel? I also loved the contrast between the actors' roles on the radio and their personal lives.
Also interesting is the depiction of the American upper midwest farm culture.
I did feel the novel fell apart at the end, particularly the epilogue. Nevertheless, for fast-paced, entertaining, funny, light reading, WLT is a good choice.