LIBERTY: A Lake Wobegon Novel
Garrison Keillor
Penguin
Fiction
Hardcover: 9780670019915
Paperback: 9780143116110
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
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