MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. July 15, 2009 — Garrison Keillor continues his masterful storytelling with his latest work, Life among the Lutherans, published by Augsburg Books. Based on his Lake Wobegon monologues, Life among the Lutherans reflects everything Keillor fans have come to expect, a slice of small-town life complete with touching stories and laugh-out-loud moments. Having just celebrated the 35th anniversary of his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, Keillor draws on his “greatest hits,” including the quintessentially Lutheran “95 Theses” from Lake Wobegon Days. Other stories are new, with Keillor detailing every entertaining, surprising, and comforting aspect of life in a Lutheran world.
“I don’t know much about Lutherans and that is one reason I’ve told stories about them over the years, so I could learn.” –Garrison Keillor
Keillor’s introduction references Lutheran hotbeds like Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, as inspiration. He equates performing A Prairie Home Companion in front of real Lutherans to a singer friend “who studied opera in Minnesota and California and then took a job singing in Verona: it suddenly dawned on him that he was singing Puccini to people who knew the words. And they would know if he tried to fake it.”
Readers–even those who aren’t Lutheran–feel right at home in the mythical community where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
Garrison Keillor is an American storyteller, humorist, writer, and host of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac heard on public radio stations across the country. He was born in Anoka, Minnesota, and raised in a family belonging to a Plymouth Brethren congregation. Keillor has written many magazine articles and is the author of more than a dozen books, including Lake Wobegon Days, The Book of Guys, and Homegrown Democrat.
Life among the Lutherans is available through the Augsburg Books imprint of Augsburg Fortress.
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