Rating: 
Summary: Disappointingly bleak
Review: The main character of this grim novel is an overweight, selfish, alcoholic, alleged author who is struggling with writer's block. He abandons and is determinedly unfaithful to his long-suffering and rather pathetic wife who does not divorce him, but is understandably hesitant to take him back.
This is not for those who enjoy Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio series and the warm and lovely humor and pathos of Lake Wobegon. There are few smiles for the reader of this book, no tears. The characters and situations are unlovable and tiresome. I found myself skimming intermittently about a quarter of the way through- searching for something of interest-some glimmer of hope.
In addition to the above, there are some surprisingly hateful diatribes against Republicans and President Bush which are sure to alienate approximately half of Keillor's fan base.
The only redeeming value in my experience with this book? I borrowed it from the library and therefore did not end up spending a penny towards this gloomy read.
Rating: 
Summary: Better and Better
Review: "Love Me" is a remarkable book. Keillor is honest, transparent, funny, and sadly wise. This may be heresy, but in this work, Keillor approaches Twain in his sense of laughing through the pain--and incidentally, educating the reader about The Meaning Of It All. If this book moves you, you might try "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him."
Rating: 
Summary: Love Your Fans
Review: Anyone even passingly familiar with Garrison Keillor's fiction would know better than to expect it to be uplifting. But even devoted, unapologetic Keillor fans will be blindsided by the dreary, defeated tone of this book. The effect is something like looking at a gunmetal-gray midwestern sky in October, feeling the chill closing in, knowing that summer is long gone and the hard slog through winter hasn't even begun.The basic arc of the story concerns whether or not Wyler will reconcile with his estranged wife, Iris, who puts up with more from Wyler than any real-life woman would. It makes sense that since this question is the thrust of the book, we as readers should be interested in whether it happens or not, or even better, be rooting for Wyler to get his act together so that Iris will take him back. But this simply isn't possible with chapter after chapter of Wyler alternately indulging in boorish behavior and moaning about his loneliness. When they finally do reconcile there is no emotional payoff. What little sympathy we have left has been transferred to Iris, in spite of Keillor's efforts to make her seem cold and indifferent (possibly to help explain why Wyler went astray), and we question her judgment in taking him back. The basic theme of the novel is reconciliation, a favorite theme of Keillor's with his many Wobegon tales of prodigals welcomed home, and the reconciliation with Iris parallels both Wyler's and Keillor's reconciliation with the Midwest after being drawn to New York City. It also parallels Keillor's reconciliation with radio after abandoning it for writing and publishing and the New York Literary scene. But in recognizing the significance of the subject matter for Keillor, it just becomes more painful to see it cheapened with silly jokes and half-hearted attempts at resolution. But Keillor is not done there. He shoots down his own happy ending with Wyler's maudlin ramblings about his Alzheimer's affliction. He has become just another project for Iris, whose concern for the downtrodden and afflicted is prodigious. Wyler is obviously fictional and greatly exaggerated, but I wonder if the obvious loathing Keillor has for this character mirrors similar feelings for himself. If so, I hope he's gotten it out of his system with this one. Buck up, Gary. Suck it up, soldier on, and good luck with the Tomato novel. In spite of the last two, I'm looking forward to it.
Rating:
Summary: A funny and touching book that also made me think
Review: Enjoyed reading LOVE ME by Garrison Keilor (creator of
Lake Wobegon and the host and writer of the Saturday-night
radio show A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION). This is a novel about a writer who hits it big with his first
book, then moves to Manhattan to take a job with THE NEW
YORKER . . . his wife stays behind in Minnesota, and as is
usually the case in such long distance relationships, their
marriage deteriorates. At the same time, a long spell of writer's block enters the
picture . . . and the writer despairs until out of nowhere comes
an invitation to write a newspaper advice column, "Ask Mr.
Blue" . . . this places him on the low rung of the literary
ladder, but provides him with much-needed distraction while
also imitating his own long recovery. The book was both funny and touching, as it made me
think about the virtues of real love and the fact that I'm
grateful that I have a steady job. There were several memorable passages; among them: * All I wanted to do was write something good for The New Yorker
magazine. One day, I wrote on a piece of paper: WHY DO I WRITE? 1. The big bucks. It might happen again. You never know.
2. The adulation of readers. People coming up in restaurants and
saying, "Your stuff cheered my up once during chemo."
3. A cool thing to do. What do you do? I'm a writer. Oh. Cool.
4. Am otherwise unemployable. As a nonwriter, I'd need to work
as a parking lot attendant or clerk in a convenience store or
else be institutionalized for a period of time.
5. The inscription on the façade of Northrop Auditorium at the
U of M, about the search for truth.
6. How many people get the chance to write for The New Yorker
magazine? Not many. There are Phi Beta Kappas from Princeton
happy to work in the mail room and sharpen pencils and
deliver galley proofs. The receptionist is a former Rhodes
scholar who sits at work on an article about the spine. If I listen
closely, I can hear the ptptptptptpt of her computer keys.
7. Want to please my old English teacher, Mr. Hochstetter, who
thought I had talent though in retrospect this doesn't say much for
his judgment.
8. Want to impress women. Shakespeare was out to impress the dark
lady, and Keats wrote for Fanny, Wordsworth for his sister Dorothy,
and Balzac and Dickens and Hemingway and all those rascals.
All of them out to impress the ladies.
9. A chance to speak to the youth of tomorrow.
10. Big bucks ten to lead to bigger bucks-TV, movies, soft goods.
Look and A.A. Milne. He was a hardworking hack, cranking out
stuff about the Boer War and motoring and country houses
and Bright Young Things, and then he hit on Talking Animals
and discovered the importance of subsidiary rights, product,
marketing tie-ins. * She said she thought we should make love. New York has that effect
on Minnesotans, I guess. You go through the harrowing landing at
LaGuardia, skimming over the rooftops of Brooklyn and thinking about
the short runway ahead and the one slight miscalculation that sends
the plane skittering off the end of the tarmac into Long Island Sound
and you'd have to push and kick and punch your way through the
panic-stricken mass of passengers to get to the exit row and step
on small children to propel yourself out the little window and onto the
wing and into the water and paddle to shore, using your seat cushion
as a flotation device, and blue lights flashing, the screams of the burned, the drowning, the pounding of helicopters-and then the plane lands
and you collect your luggage and ride into the city and by George you're
in the mood to take off your clothes and hop into bed. * He turned to me as he shoved the putter in his bag. "Writers like to
think that writing is like Arctic exploration or flying the Atlantic solo
but actually it's more like golf. You've got to go out and do it every
day and live by the results. You can brood over it but in the end you've
got to take the club out of the bag and take your swing. You hit the
ball to where it wants to go, a series of eighteen small steel cups
recessed in turf, on a course that others have traversed before you.
You are not the first. You accomplish this by practicing an elegant
economy you learned from others and thereby overcoming your
damn self-consciousness which trips you up every time."
Rating:
Summary: My new favorite GK book
Review: Fans of Prairie Home Companion may or may not like GK's new book "Love Me," but to fans of his books it will not disappoint. It's definitely R-rated, but in his uniquely human and self-conscious way. Not every action of the main character is likeable, but we're all flawed and fallen, which is a central theme of this book. In regards to a previous review, all of GK's books seem to be part autobiography, part fiction. I wouldn't assume that much of the book depicts real events from the author's life. If you've already read a summary of the plot, be sure that there is much more to the story. It's a very rich and rewarding book, filled with GK's insights and unique humor, but it isn't the 'News from Lake Wobegon,' and may offend some more conservative readers. I absolutely loved this book and recommend it without hesitation. If you're new to Garrison Keillor as an author, my personal favorite books are 'WLT: A Radio Romance,' and 'Wobegon Boy,' though I've enjoyed them all.
Rating:
Summary: Wasted time
Review: First let me say that I love PHC. I have read many of his books. I lost interest in one of his previous books when he kept describing his elaborate meals and fine wines just too many times.
I was pleased to see a book that I didn't know existed by Garrison. I ran across it in the used book section of the book store. There was a reason I hadn't heard of it before.
I imagine that you are supposed to see Larry as shallow Larry and pathetic. Personally I found the whole thing boorish. I got the message. I didn't find it insightful. Instead I wanted to clock the guy and Garrison over the head with the book itself. It was page after page of mindless crap going on about writers block and a middle age man in heat.
Larry, keep it in your pants - and Readers, keep your dollars.
Rating: 
Summary: He's done it again.
Review: Garrison has done again. So,if you've liked what he's done before, you'll like this novel; if you despise him (and thus have likely hated his work without reading it),you'll hate this one too. As usual, he takes on the Republicans,the media, most of the female race, and the elite for our amusement. He savagely attacks what he sees as the elite right, including our newest senator Norm Coleman ("100% smile and 0% content" ). However,he reserves the harshest attacks for himself, assuming this novel to be auto-biographical, describing his various extra-marital dalliances and even difficulties with adulterous impotence! He'll no doubt be criticized by many who feel his political comments are out of line, even though he uses the guise of fiction (including very thinly disguised characters) to promote his liberal views. As a liberal,it was a delight to read the political parts of this novel, and thus no problem to read through them to the more hilarious difficulties he faces with his career and marriage. Reading it in bed last night, I couldn't help but repeatedly laugh out loud, resulting in some personal marital strain. Others of a more conservative persuasion may find the political pill so hard to swallow that they won't appreciate the great writing he offers here. This novel is definitely not about Lake Wobegon, but about what happens after Lake Wobegon has been left far behind.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves a look...
Review: Garrison Keillor isn't Jonathan Franzen or Michael Chabon. Love Me won't be a Pulitzer finalist, and the prose isn't the sort of muscular writing that wins an author rave reviews from the New York Times Book Review . With that disclaimer out of the way, Keillor's latest novel is utterly charming. It tells the story of a relationship over a lifetime, carrying the reader along from the first date (at a choir concert) through decades of separation and infidelity and onward to the realization, acknowledged from the start of the book, that the narrator's place is in St. Paul with his wife, not hobnobbing in New York or gallivanting in Holland with a more stylish woman. Seeing that from the start would make for a more satisfying life, but it wouldn't be much of a book. Instead, Love Me has plot twists to spare. Larry Wyler-narrator and thinly-veiled Keillor stand-in-slogs along as an unpublished writer, suddenly achieves bestsellerdom and fame, works at the New Yorker , rubbing shoulders with Updike and Salinger, releases a flop, and becomes Mr. Blue, an advice columnist. In a bizarre plot twist that offers a revealing sample of the novel's overall mood, Wyler discovers that the New Yorker -the magazine he has worshipped all his life-is a vehicle for the mob, and he is called on by the staff to kill the publisher, who plans to merge the magazine with Field and Stream . The writing, for most of the book, is suitable for such a plot, playful and inviting, and it carries the reader along. As Wyler ages, the prose changes; the novel's conclusion is written tenderly, a reflection of the narrator's softening and newfound wisdom as time goes by, and the result is a tone fitting for those who imagine Keillor's famous voice as they read his work. The shift makes the final fifth of the book the best part of it; as Wyler works to fix his marriage the new kindness he lavishes on his long-neglected wife is reflected onto the reader as well. An added bonus for this reader was Keillor's apparent love, though jaded, for his home in Minnesota. Scenes relaxing at the cabin up north, roaming the State Fair, and simply existing around St. Paul and Minneapolis are perfectly rendered to inspire a bout of Minnesota nostalgia. Keillor has also let his bitterness about the current political situation seep through: Bush's ascendance in 2000 is an important event near the end of the book, and St. Paul's mayor, clearly meant to be now-Senator Norm Coleman, comes in for some harsh treatment. But this is a minor distraction from a delightful, if admittedly also minor, novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Guy Thing?
Review: I enjoy the PHC radio show very much (except for some of the toilet humor), but found this storyline to be a turn off. The main character isn't very likable (hitting on the nurse at the fertility clinic while he and his wife are trying to have a child), and the wife who is a serious and committed social worker strangely gets sidetracked with odd forms of massage at the end. Maybe it's supposed to be farce and you just read for the jokes. Still, if this novel really is autobiographical, like the reviews say, one can only imagine what Keillor's wife thinks of all these adulterous confessions. And why would you end a farce with the main character getting an Alzheimer's type of disease? Unless this is supposed to be God punishing him? Anyway, I think maybe you have to be a guy to enjoy this one.
Rating:
Summary: Keillor Lays A Deviled Egg
Review: I love Garrison Keillor; he is an American treasure...a peerless storyteller. I collect his books and have listened to him on the radio for twenty years. However, with "Love Me," he continues his slide into sleaze, which first became painfully noticable with "Lake Wobegon, Summer 1956." Let us be honest: reading Keillor as he sets up and describes an illicit sex scene is about as comfortable as listening to your Sunday School teacher do the same. There are just some things that should not be done; tugging on Superman's cape, spitting into the wind, and Garrison Keillor playing the role of a drooling, leering lech being chief among them. One really wonders what Keillor's point or motivation was in writing this half-baked collection of vignettes that are vaguely strung together. The premise--writer experiences fluke hit, runs off to the Big Apple, experiences frustration and failure, returns to hearth and home--is promising. And the idea of spoofing pompous literary titans is appealing. But somewhere in the execution of it all, Keillor becomes too cute for his own good. Inside joke is piled on top of inside joke on top of obscure reference on top of tasteless gag in a higgledy-piggeldy hodge-podge of writerly ejaculation. James Thurber once wrote a sublime short story called "The Catbird Seat" about a mild-mannered man who, for one evening, goes absolutely beserk in order to gain revenge upon an annoying co-worker. There's something about Keillor's book that makes me wonder if he was either trying to write about something similar, or even, perhaps, he has become annoyed with all of us, his readers, and he is trying to make some kind of strange point with us by playing tricks on us. One final note: his political remarks are so extremely barbed that I couldn't tell if he was mocking liberals or intentionally excoriating conservatives. Either way, when I finished this book, I felt a bit drunk. Not in the sense of being intoxicated, but in the sense of being an empty glass. (NOTE: Obscure Douglas Adams reference. Wink. Wink.) I give it two stars simply on the basis of Keillor's towering talent to make even dreck seem occasionally funny and interesting.
|
