Pilgrims

Margie Krebsbach hopes that a trip to Rome will inspire her husband Carl to make love to her. He’s been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. That’s her real reason for the trip, but she finds a patriotic purpose as well: a Lake Wobegon boy died in the liberation of the city in 1944, and his grave is in a neglected weed patch near the Coliseum. So it’s decided they will go to clean Gussy Norlander’s final resting place.

What begins as a trip for two turns into a modern-day Canterbury Tales as more Wobegonians decide to go along—including Margie’s nemesis, the mayor, Carl’s bossy sister Eloise; her treacherous mother-in-law; and Mr. Berge, the town drunk. She gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel: away from home, the pilgrims share stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.

All Margie Kresbach wants to do is get her husband Carl to Rome, thinking a romantic locale (and the fact that he won’t then be able to sleep across the hall, like at home) will rekindle their relationship.

Instead she finds herself in the unwanted role of tour organizer to a motley crew of Wobegonians who believe they are on a pilgrimage to tend the gravesite of a Lake Wobegon son, fallen during WWII and buried, purportedly, near the Coliseum.

But she and they unexpectedly find that distance from Lake Wobegon quickens their sense of community and awakens their memories. Soon they find themselves sharing stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.

The Washington Post - Steve Amick

In Garrison Keillor's laugh-filled umpteenth novel…the Wobegonians travel abroad for the first time. And they negotiate the streets of Rome and their feelings the same way they do back home—by telling stories about other Wobegonians…Once the chuckles subside, [Keillor] leaves us with an engaging, moving look at the true, daily heroics: people struggling to go ahead and love those they've thrown in with, or—short of that—at least overcome the urge to give them a good choking.

First with his performances on Minnesota Public Radio's Prairie Home Companion and later in his books, Garrison Keillor has become a symbol of the small-town Midwest -- its absurdities, its stoutness, and its warmth. His popular, funny stories set in Lake Wobegon manage to evoke nostalgia for a town that never existed.