The Plowboy Interview GARRISON KEILLOR

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I wrote a story not so long ago that I started on an idea I got from my friend Judy Larson, who was simply telling me about some people taking their dog for a ride on a pontoon boat. The combination of the dog and the pontoon boat was really all I needed, and I could take it from there. But you do need a few images to get yourself started if you spend as much time in an office as I do. Offices are pretty dry, sterile places.

PLOWBOY: How is your novel on Lake Wobegon coming along?

KEILLOR I think it's coming along well. It's a collection of pieces which are trying to make themselves into a novel. I don't think there's a whole lot in it that I haven't said on the show. However, it does include a lot on the early history of Lake Wobegon—the early Unitarian missionaries, the first dishonest Congregationalist promoters, and other details that I've been reluctant to expose on the air.

I've also filled in some information that I've always wanted to add. For example, in a monologue about Halloween—which is close to Reformation Sunday—I once told about a young man who nailed theses on the door of the Lutheran Church in Lake Wobegon, accusing the town of various things I want to actually write those theses and include them in the book.

PLOWBOY: Is it a series of short stories stitched together, or have you tried a traditional novel form?

KEILLOR It's not a traditional novel. It's episodic, cyclical. It begins in summertime, goes through the fall and the winter and the spring, and it returns to summer. But that's its only sense of time. I go from one thing in the fall of 1959 to something in the fall of '32, and they lie on top of each other. That's my feeling about history in a small town or among families: It has to do with the time of year. Everything, every story, comes around again. And the course of the year is always tied to the growing season or the liturgical season or a particular seasonal smell or kind of feeling.

If I were to move to a part of the country that didn't have four seasons, I'd forget two-thirds of everything I know.

PLOWBOY: Everybody changes over a ten-year period. In what ways is your life different than it was ten years ago, when "A Prairie Home Companion" began?

KEILLOR Ten years ago, I had a kid who was 5 years old, and now I've got a 15-year-old. That is the biggest change, and as far as I'm concerned, it's all for the better. Fifteen is a great age. If you've got a 15-year-old around, it gives you a different outlook on life.

PLOWBOY: A recent issue of Connoisseur magazine mentioned 131 people who are on their way to becoming America's living monuments. Among them were Garrison Keillor and two other comedians—Woody Allen and Richard Pryor. What do you think about being named one of America's 131 greatest living monuments, and about the company you're keeping?

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