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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Pontoon:
A Novel of Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Foibles Freed
from the constraints of single radio episodes, Garrison Keillor can expand
with abandon on the foibles of human behavior in his novels, which he does
with abandon in his latest offering, Pontoon:
A Novel of Lake Wobegon. Keillor assembles a cast of fully formed
characters, people with flesh, who do things that people we know, even ourselves,
may have done, or may have wanted to do. The fierce independence of 82-year-old
Evelyn Peterson continues after her death, as her wishes for burial surprise
her Lutheran neighbors. Her kindness to others and consideration of them,
also survive her, and their behavior tells readers as much about her as it
does about them. Readers will laugh on these pages, smile often, and reflect
with some melancholy about the impact that others have on us, and that we have
on others, as we live our lives in community, in family and in many different
relationships. Here’s an excerpt, from the end of Chapter 2, pp. 21-24: She
dialed Kyle's number at his apartment in Minneapolis. He picked up on the
third ring. He sounded distracted. Kyle was a sophomore at the University, an
English major, and he studied all the time. "It's
Mother, honey. I'm awfully sorry but I have bad news. Grandma died." "Omigod."
He let out a breath. "When did she die?" And a girl's voice said,
"What?" "She
died in her sleep. Last night. It must have been sudden. She was reading a
book and it fell on the floor and she just died." He
was crying and the girl was comforting him, she said, "It's okay, it's
okay." And she hugged him. Barbara said, "I know it's a shock. Me,
too. I just walked in and there she was. She must've had a heart
attack." "When
did it happen?" He was crying, he could hardly get the words out. The
girl whispered, "Who died?" "Last
night. Late. She went out for dinner with her buddies and came home and went
to bed and she died. In her sleep. She was very peaceful." The
girl was whispering to him. "My grandma," said Kyle. "Last
night." Barbara
said that Grandma was not afraid of death, she looked it straight in the eye,
and don't you think she had such a good life because she knew life was short
and that pushed her to do more than most people her age would dream of she
talked, listening to him try to take a deep breath and compose himself and
this girl, whoever she was, nuzzling him and then it dawned on Barbara that
the two of them were naked. Something in the pitch of their voices. A mother
can tell. Two naked young people, her freckle-faced boy weeping, and this
other person—she imagined a bosomy girl with studs in her nipples and a
butterfly tattoo on her butt. She didn't tell him that she
was, at that very moment, sitting on the bed where the dead body lay. She
could see the shape of Mother's left hand under the sheet. She could have
reached out and touched it. "Are you okay?" he
said. Yes, of course she was okay, she only wished she could tell him what it
was like to walk in and to find her own mother, for crying out loud,
lying in bed with her eyes open. "I suppose I'm in shock,"
she said. "I don't know what we're going to do without her." She listened hard for the girl
to say something. "When's the funeral?"
Kyle asked. "Well, that's what I
called you about." And she read him the letter. Word for word. "That is so awesome,"
he said. He wasn't crying anymore, he was half laughing. "Wow. A bowling
ball! ! You mean, like a real bowling ball ?" "I found it in her closet.
It's green. Like green marble. Expensive. It looks Italian." "And no eulogy, no
prayers. Boy. She had a whole other life, didn't she." "I am just a little
worried about this Raoul. What if he shows up?" "Of course he'll show up.
We'll invite him. He was her boyfriend. He loved her." Kyle sounded a
little giddy. "God, Grandma! I always thought she had something else
going on!" "You think we should?
Really? I don't know what to do," said Barbara. "We're
going to do it just exactly the way she wanted it," he said. "I'm
going to do it myself." He was all excited now, bouncing around and
yipping about his parasail the one he had built from a kit what was a parasail?
(parasol?)—and now the girl's voice said, "Kyle, I can't
let you do that. You know how
I feel," and he walked away from her. He was naked in a bedroom in
Minneapolis with a girl. Barbara wanted to ask, "Who's there?" On
the other hand she didn't want to know. A redhead maybe, one of those
freckled Irish beauties, howbeit with tiny silver hammers stuck in her
nipples. A little trollop who could seduce and ensnare a bright but naive
young man, and lead him off to an itinerant life of miming for spare change
on street corners, her smart little boy so
good in school, so innocent
in the ways of the world,
and her eyes filled with tears at the thought of losing him. The boy who
achieved Eagle Scout and who put on the white robe every Sunday morning and
carried the cross down the church aisle who had almost not
gone to college but his mother made him go, who was on the road to becoming somebody - he
was in clutches of the trollop. Maybe she had interrupted them in the midst
of hot sex. She tried to imagine his skinny body intertwined with a
girl's. How weak men are! Educate them all you like,
make them read philosophy and history and poetry, but when the waitress leans
over the table and her shapely breasts hung like ripe fruit, men go blank,
their pants enlarge, intelligence plummets, they are ready to buy whatever is
offered and pay any price. Give them the check, they
will sign it! Take their shoes, their watch, the loose change
jingling in their pocket- they will look
at you in awestruck wonder, little girl, and whisper Thank You as you wave
good-bye. "It's okay, Mom. Call up the
mortuary. Not Lindberg. I don't think he does cremations. Call one in St.
Cloud. Look in the Yellow Pages. I'll be there tomorrow morning. Do you need
me to find Raoul?" "No, I'll find him myself.
Soon as I hang up." "Promise? You can't leave
Raoul out." Kyle laughed. Raoul. She had visions of a dance
instructor in a storefront studio, Raoul's House of Samba, a lounge lizard in
black slacks and flamenco shirt, his specialty: mature women, unattached.
Twenty dollars a dance, no extra charge for the squeeze. Pontoon
is a celebration of life, urging all readers to know these characters, people
just like us, who just have to live life to the fullest. Steve
Hopkins, February 21, 2008 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the March 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Pontoon.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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