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Garrison Keillor
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Pilgrims: A Lake Wobegon Romance Paperback – September 28, 2010

by Garrison Keillor (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 114 ratings
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Lake Wobegon goes to Italy in Garrison Keillor's latest

Twelve Wobegonians fly to Rome to decorate a war hero's grave, led by Marjorie Krebsbach, with radio host Gary Keillor along for the ride. The pilgrimage is inspired by a phone call from an Italian woman seeking her Lake Wobegon roots and by a memoir O Paradiso by a farm wife who found the secret of life and love in Italy. And by marjorie's longing to win back the love of her husband Carl. Far from home, sitting in the rain in the Piazza Navona, the pilgrims talks about themselves, as they never could do in the Chatterbox Café.

"You're not going to write about this, I hope," says Irene Bunsen. "Of course I am. I invented this town," says Mr. Keillor. "Oh my, aren't you something," she replies.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    September 28, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    5.01 x 0.53 x 7.72 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0143117858
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0143117858
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Garrison Keillor, author of nearly a dozen books, is founder and host of the acclaimed radio show A Prairie Home Companion and the daily program The Writer's Almanac. He is also a regular contributor to Time magazine.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (September 28, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143117858
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143117858
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.01 x 0.53 x 7.72 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 114 ratings

About the author

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Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor

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Garrison Keillor wrote Boom Town during the pandemic lockdown in New York, reading drafts of it to his wife, Jenny, sitting across the room. He did parts of the book in monologues for audiences in Boston, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia, along with the story of how, in the eighth grade, his shop teacher Orville Buehler, worried about the boy's carelessness with the power saw, sent him up to LaVona Person's speech class, thus changing his life. Keillor says, "For many people, the key to success is discipline and education, but for me, it was ineptitude with power tools." His twice-weekly columns appear on Substack (garrisonkeillor.substack.com).

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
114 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

olivia
5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived in perfect condition.
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2022
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Just like new.
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Pamela Dorris
4.0 out of 5 stars Guffawing In The Library
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2013
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While it's true that some of Keillor's earlier work was less than riveting, PILGRIMS, as well as LIFE AMONG THE LUTHERANS, LIBERTY, and PONTOON have been pretty much on the mark. I'd kinda forgotten about Keillor in the shuffle of daily events, so when PILGRIMS slid across the check-in desk at the Sedona library, I picked it up for a quick perusal and randomly opened it, subsequently finding something so funny I laughed out loud.

There are some states whose inhabitants are colorless. Ohio springs to mind, along with Indiana and Kansas, to name three. However, in contrast is the trinity of upper Midwestern states. Wisconsin with its Cheeseheads (an affable beer-guzzling, party-hearty crowd of Germans who have replaced the word "the" with "da", "water fountain" with "bubbler", and coined the prepositional phrase "down by", as in "I'll meet you down by the museum") takes deer hunting as a rite of manhood and outdoor Packer games with tailgating parties in sub-zero weather as a point of pride. Wisconsin's neighbor to the north is the Upper Penninsula of Michigan with its half-feral population of Finns, Italians, and Swedes who also exhibit linguistic singularities with the choice use of the double negative ("he don't never") as well as the definite articles "deese, dem, and dose" and the very basic "ain't." The Yupers have declared opening day of the deer hunting season as a school holiday because so many of them are dragging their increasingly younger progeny into the woods to hunt. But, lest we scoff, they have given us the Cornish pasty and homemade ravioli.

The third member of this trio is Minnesota, a vein so rich in quirky behavior that Garrison Keillor has managed to mine himself a very comfortable living from it. Minnesotans are peculiar in an under-stated way. I myself was startled to discover that a large number of residents of Minneapolis had never in their entire lives taken the short drive across the Mississippi to visit their sister city of St. Paul. And that the members of an elite, in-bred country club took winter vacations only with other members of the same country club, traveling en masse as a kind of moveable feast where they'd never need to bother themselves with strangers. Linguistically, of course, Keillor nails the "jah, you betcha", "so how's that goin' for ya then" and "okay then, bye-bye" so ingrained in the persona of Minnesotans outside of the relatively sophisticated metropolitan centers. Also, he has mastered the repressed passive aggressive nature of the Lutheran Scandinavian population that forms the bedrock of the state. These are people who don't speak out on public issues but snipe mercilessly behind the scenes after church; people whose sense of humor is slyly simple and which rarely elicits anything more than a knowing chuckle as opposed to an outright "haw"; and people who like the status quo being dull, although there are occasionally spectacular "break out" incidents such as the election of a professional wrestler to state governor or the Jordan kiddy porn scandal that unraveled like the Salem witch hunt trials.

In PILGRIMS, a group of textbook Woebegonians gets an unexpected opportunity to travel to Rome. For most of the travelers the trip is not a learning experience, merely a chance to take their old baggage and mores to a new location, with the exception of Marjorie Krebsbach who is in the grip of a hormonal mid-life crisis with a marriage that's cooled with time. PILGRIMS concerns itself with Marjorie's adventures and, while it wades into the verboten territories of sexuality, inherited wealth, and a newly discovered sense of personal freedom that some of Keillor's readers have balked against, nevertheless the book is howlingly funny. I must've laughed OUT LOUD no less than 15 times.

In St. Paul years ago there was a fabulous Vietnamese restaurant named Kim Long's where I'd see Keillor dining on Saturday nights. You couldn't miss him. Tall, dressed in a black suit, with black hair, black glasses, and impossibly thick black eyebrows, he always looked a little dour. So how can he be so very funny? This is the question of the ages.
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Loren J. Holmgren
5.0 out of 5 stars Garrison Keillor's Pilgrims
Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2009
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As a fan of Garrison Keillor, any of his books are reccomended reading.
This book finds himself in the middle of a tour to Rome, Italy with about
25 Lake Wobegonions to put a picture on a tombstone of a war hero from
Lake Wobegon. Every page is full of humor that only Keillor can create.
I have read all of his books and have my own picture of his characters in
my mind.
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Judith Gruber
4.0 out of 5 stars Strange Warmhearted Pilgrimage
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2010
Marjorie Krebsbach is your typical repressed Wobegonian, and her marriage is in big trouble, as Carl, her typical repressed Wobegonian husband, is sleeping in the guest bedroom down the hall and won't tell her why. Everything changes when she receives that fateful call from Italy. Seems that a former Wobegonian, August Norlander, died in the liberation of Italy, and a lady named Maria Gennaro is trying to trace his roots back to Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.

Well, it's a long story, but Marjorie gets a group together to travel to Italy and put "Gussie's" picture on his tombstone. It's a quixotic pilgrimage and it gets stranger by the day, for Marjorie will break out of her box in some very surprising ways. And to make things even quirkier, author Garrison Keillor is one of the pilgrims, and definitely not the most popular member of the little group. Is the story believable? Not a bit. Does that matter? No. Is the book entertaining? Absolutely.

Needless to say, Garrison Keillor can spin a yarn, and he does so again, going farther and farther afield. But will the Minnesota pilgrims suceed? Will they find Gussie Norlander's grave? Will Marjorie save her marriage? Who is Maria Gennaro? You'll have to read the book to find out. You'll love it, and you'll enjoy the trip to Rome, as well. I loved this pilgrimage and I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
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LE Olson
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read - funny and soulful.
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2013
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This book made my vacation: I flew to Hawaii and this book was the most memorable part of an awesome vacation. Garrison does it again; a blend of humour with a soulful depiction of the human spirit.

I'm in grad school for chemistry and have little time for pleasure reading. This book was the perfect choice - worth every second.

Enjoy
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O-Coaster
3.0 out of 5 stars Mr Keillor certainly is an accomplished writer, but seems ...
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2015
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Mr Keillor certainly is an accomplished writer, but seems to spend a lot of his stories sneering at the attitudes, expectations, hopes, and beliefs that people have with sophisticated acrimony. Many of the characters are thin, but overall it was an enjoyable read. Just not one of my favorites.
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Kathy
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it on vacation
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2013
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This is pure Garrison Keilor. The story is about Garrison Keilor and a group of the folks from Lake Woebegon taking a tirp to Italy. It was perfect for a vacation read. An easy read, and very entertaining. i got the Kindle edition.
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Trail Rider
4.0 out of 5 stars Fun Read
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2015
Fun read on the road to Rome. Nothing too heavy, but enough plot to make it interesting with good character development.
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Top reviews from other countries

Jorge De Sa Gouveia
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book.
Reviewed in Spain on September 10, 2022
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Wonderful Garrison Keillor. Best reading for an holiday. craftmanship, humor, deepness, GK has it all.
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michele
5.0 out of 5 stars Wobegon goes to Rome
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 28, 2010
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Latest news of the Wobegon crowd as they go on a memorial trip to Rome, with the author in tow. Insightful look at Americans abroad and the impact of the cynical old world on the ingenuous assorted Minnesotans. Well up to the author's high standard and highly recommended as an escapist read which includes the expected Garrison digs at all and sundry and this time including himself.
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John Rankine
4.0 out of 5 stars Style
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 17, 2023
Verified Purchase
Typical GK novel. They are not quite so good as the original Lake Wobegon tales and are written in a way that junps to side issues and (sometimes useful) bits of information. This all makes a book out of a short story. Enjoyable none the less
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rubyruby
5.0 out of 5 stars In good condition
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2018
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For a book club
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A. Browne
4.0 out of 5 stars i enjoyed the trip
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2015
Verified Purchase
Garrison takes the inhabitants of Lake woebegone far away from the chatterbox cafe and their usual surroundings on a pilgrimage to the eternal city ( no!! not St Paul or even Minneapolis) of Rome. We touch on many subjects, faith, love, remembrance and honour. The book has all the characteristic s of a typical Garrison Keillor, novel wonderful characters, improbable circumstances and utter humanity. Very enjoyable
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