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Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel (Lake Wobegon Novels)

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Author: Garrison Keillor
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$25.95~~
Buy New: $9.92
You Save: $16.03 (62%)

New (45) Used (23) from $9.42

Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

14 reviews
Sales Rank: 1197

Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2

ISBN: 0670019917
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780670019915
ASIN: 0670019917

Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel (Thorndike Press Large Print Core Series)
•	Audio Download - Liberty (Unabridged)
•	Kindle Edition - Liberty
•	Audio CD - Liberty (Lake Wobegon Novels)

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?

Clint Bunsen is one of the old reliables in Lake Wobegon the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts your car on below-zero mornings. For six years he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks and girls pushing baby carriages that hold their cats into an event of dazzling spectacle. Blazing bands, marching units, cannons, horses, a fireworks show, and the famous Living Flagone thousand men and women wearing red, white, or blue, standing in formationhave attracted the attention of CNN and prompted the governor to put in an appearance as well. The town is dizzy with anticipation. Until, that is, they hear of Clints ambition to run for Congress. Theyre embarrassed for him. They know him too wellhis unfortunate episodes involving vodka sours, his rocky marriage. And then there is his friendship, or whatever it is, with the twenty-four-year-old girl who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade. Its rumored that underneath those robes she is buck naked, and that her torch contains a quart of booze.

Its Lake Wobegon as its always beengood loving people who drive each other crazy.

Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Read LIBERTY and you'll never think of the Fourth of July in quite the same way again November 18, 2008
Is Clint Bunsen suffering a midlife crisis? He is convinced by a faulty DNA lab report that he is part slightly over half Hispanic, which differs strongly from what his family has always believed: that they are absolutely, positively 100% Norwegian. He attempts to shed his sturdy, Midwestern persona by thinking in Spanish and ordering some rather flamboyant clothing to wear on July 4th.

Clint's wife of many years is getting on his nerves, and he has met a hottie: a twenty-something woman named Angelica, who really rings his chimes. She teaches yoga, is a topless dancer and a part-time mystic, and Clint feels that he has just won the lottery when he's alone with her. He's even toying with the idea of accompanying her to California. His children are grown and gone, so he doesn't feel it's necessary to stick around. He's tired of working his fingers to the bone as a mechanic in the family business, the local Ford garage, which isn't doing all that well anyway. And he's being shoved aside by the Parade Committee, which is unfortunate, considering all his hard work in attempting to give the sleepy little community a spectacular celebration year after year. This will be his last year as Chairman of the Fourth of July parade, and he intends to pull out all the stops.

Clint has spared no expense when it comes to celebrating the Fourth. Didn't he put the town on the map last year with the parade? He even got CNN to cover a few minutes of it on national television, even though Lake Wobegon itself never got mentioned on air. And this year's parade and celebration will be phenomenal, or at least his version of phenomenal.

He even managed to secure Homeland Security Funds that he used to purchase aerial diversion devices (some pretty awesome fireworks, though they couldn't really be called fireworks). He stepped on some folks' toes when he said there would be no pickup trucks in the parade and no tractors except for antique ones. He cancelled Cowpie Bingo and didn't want the Sons of Knute to march because they were too pokey. Local folks in costume would represent George and Martha Washington, Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Uncle Sam would be on stilts. A handbell choir, a precision pitchfork drill team and a couple representing American Gothic painted by Grant Wood would also march. There would be four teams of 16 Percherons pulling circus wagons. The Living Flag, the mayor, the governor and Miss Liberty would all participate.

When the Fourth arrives, the community is filled with excitement --- if residents of Lake Wobegon can actually get excited about anything. There's some tension in the air, too, because Angelica has arrived in town with her new boyfriend, Clint's wife is toting a gun, the governor isn't on time, and all manner of other problems keep popping up. Even CNN is running late.

The parade begins. Circus wagons, drum-and-bugle corps, a 4-H float, the Soybean Queen, 20 dancers from the Tammy Jo Dance Studio Happiness Troupe, Leaping Lutherans Parachute Team, 10 Minutemen, a unicycle basketball team, a 40-member handbell choir, and all the rest. Miss Liberty, Angelica, is wearing only a robe and sandals. Imagine a parade gone somewhat askew, to say the very least. Read LIBERTY and you'll never think of the Fourth of July in quite the same way again.

--- Reviewed by Carole Turner

4 out of 5 stars

Keillor Embraces the Dark Side November 15, 2008
Garrison Keillor must hate his Lake Wobegon almost as much as he loves it. Though Keillor is not known for Village Virus writing like his Midwestern predecessors Sinclair Lewis and Sherwood Anderson, in _Liberty_ Keillor has embraced the dark side of his charming and quirky small town, for here his characters are not simply odd: they are deranged, depressed, and even bitter at times. Rather than being repulsed by this darkness, however, readers should be ready to embrace it. In the novel, the plight of Clint Bunsen is surprisingly compelling and fresh despite its mid-life-crisis conventions. A man thoroughly tired of the unforgiving dullness of his work, whose wife expresses more passion for her tomatoes than for him, who finds he may be of Spanish, not Norwegian, descent, Clint longs for, of course, Liberty. And when freedom presents itself in the form of a young and beautiful yoga instructor/topless dancer/fortune teller who wants to whisk him off to the California he has always longed for, you root for Clint to dump the whole rotten town and start anew. All of this deranged anger Keillor delivers with aplomb and charm, and fans of the Lake Wobegon series will not be disappointed.

2 out of 5 stars

guys seem to like it; this woman didn't November 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Comedy and generous-heartedness are missing from this sexual fantasy of GK's. As a longtime fan, I've come to accept that the females in all his stories are one-dimensional, but this one just goes too far that direction to be fun.

4 out of 5 stars

Garrison Keillor Fan November 12, 2008
My husband and I love listening to Garrison Keillor. Liberty is different and I have not heard all of it. So far it is ok but not up to his last story, Pontoon.

5 out of 5 stars

Another Great One From The Master November 12, 2008
Another great installment in a long list of great fiction from Mr. Keillor. If you liked previous ones, you will love this one. I think its even funnier (albeit at the expense of more adult humor) than previous ones.

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