WLT: A Radio Romance

By Garrison Keillor

Book Overview

In the spring of 1926, the Soderbjerg brothers, Ray and Roy, plunge into radio and launch station WLT (With Lettuce and Tomato) to rescuer their failing restaurant and become the Sandwich Kings of South Minneapolis. For the next quarter century, the "Friendly Neighbor" station produces a dazzling array of shows and stars, including Leo LaValley, Dad Benson, Wingo Beals, Slim Graves and Little Buddy, chain-smoking child star Marjery Moore, and blind baseball announcer Buck Steller.

Francis With, a shy young man from North Dakota, entranced by radio, gets into WLT through his uncle Art and quickly becomes the Soderbjerg's right hand. Soon Francis is a budding announcer adored by Lily Dale, the crippled nightingale of WLT kept hidden from her fans, whose firing contributes to the downfall of the station. And then comes television.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140103805
• ISBN13: 9780140103809
• Release Date: November 1992
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Arguably THE Great Overlooked American Novel

You want yer prose style? We got yer prose style. You want your OUTRAGEOUS humor... um... read what happens when your top writer for live radio programming doesn't get enough sleep... I laughed so hard, I couldn't breath. His prose pacing is like a psychedelic journey: just when you think things are slowing down, you're already off on another wild excursion. He seemlessly accomplishes what Ken Kesey did somewhat awkwardly in Sometimes a Great Notion-- no slouch of a book in its OWN right. If you're wondering where the Great American Novel has been hiding, wonder instead how someone as well known as Keillor could get away with writing something like this, only to have it languish in obscurity. If American literature is dead, it's only because Americans have COMPLETELY forgotten how to read. (excuse my rant)

Hysterically Funny

We want to keep Garrison Keillor in the box he's made for himself. The prudish reviews below testify to that. But, haven't you been listening? Keillor smokes Pall Malls. He likes to drink. His greatest aspiration as a young man was to hang out with the literary degeneracy in New York City, and he realized his dream. You could say he made his tight-cornered bed and now he must lie in it, and you could be dead right. However, in this book, he decided to tell a dirty joke or two and see what the public said about it. Myself, I liked it. In fact, I like WLT about the most of anything he's written. You get such an image of the other Keillor, who likes a drink and a smoke and a dirty joke. A sexist Keillor who thinks men and women should be attracted to one another and have sex now and again. It's just right. That particular Keillor cannot survive today, though. The archetype is out of fashion to a fatal degree. He wants us to love it, but we've been too conditioned for other qualities. Strangely, these new qualities are just as loutish and brutal, but they're somehow acceptable. Radio is dead, but we do have satellite...

THE GREATEST Keillor novel EVER!

WLT is one of the most moving works I have ever read by Keillor. I read it when it first came out in hardback, and recently bought the audiobook, read by Keillor; it was like hearing it for the first time. Keillor's style of reading is so believable and enthralling, that I found myself leaving earlier for work in the morning so I could hear one whole side of the tape on the way. Listening to WLT as read by Keillor is a promise that you will laugh out loud, and a moment later weep as if you've lost your best friend. Amazing. I loved it! Deeply affecting!

An ecxellent but overlooked novel

Garrison Keillor is better known for his Lake Wobegon stories, adapted from his radio monologues. These are charming enough, but I've always preferred his stories about radio, such as those found in "Happy to Be Here" (e.g., "WLT, the Edgar Era," "The Tip-Top Club," etc.).In "WLT: a Radio Romance," Keillor reworks some of these stories into a novel telling the story of two Minneapolis restaurant owners who start a radio station to promote their struggling business, and see it through from the mid-1920's to the dawn of television - the Golden Age of Radio. Alongside this are tales of others, including a boy from rural North Dakota whose fascination with radio draws him, without his even knowing it, toward a career in broadcasting.By Keillor's standards, this is a somewhat raunchy book. There is lots of strong language (more than enough to make a Minnesota mom blush), and planty of sexual shenanigans. But there is still a sweetness and an innocence that you might expect from Keillor. And the book is so well written, it really pulls you in. Of all Keillor's books, this one is easily my favorite.

One of Keillor's best

"WLT" offers an entertaining blend of humor and pathos, with a memorable cast of characters. The story chronicles the life of a Midwestern radio station from the early days of radio to the advent of television, which brought about radio's downfall. "WLT" is a marvelous period piece which transports the reader back to radio's golden age which, in many respects, was also America's golden age. I would highly recommend this book to any reader, as it undoubtedly ranks among Keillor's best.