Review by Booklist Review
/*STARRED REVIEW*/ With this book--his longest sustained story--public radio star Keillor proves he is also the dean of contemporary literary humorists. As the subtitle implies, this is a love story about radio; at any rate, it's about radio and it's a love story. In 1926, in Minneapolis, Ray and Roy Soderbjerg begin, as a promotional device for their restaurant, station WLT (stands for With Lettuce and Tomato). By gosh, it catches on. The brothers eventually close the kitchen and put their all into the "Friendly Neighbor" station. Well, Ray does, anyway; Roy's the dreamy inventor type and gets banished to Moorhead while Roy, Jr., becomes general manager. WLT's a honking success until 1950, when (womanizing) Ray's ironclad rule that employees shall stay outta each other's britches is disclosed to be rusted to a filigree and all-purpose writer Patsy Konopka starts forgetting to pull the pages of blue dialogue she scribbles to help her keep awake out of the finished scripts. But before that bitter (screamingly funny) end, young Francis With has fulfilled his ambition to work for the station. In fact, name fortuitously changed to Frank White, he becomes Roy, Jr.'s right hand and an up-and-coming announcer. And he falls in love with actress Maria Antonio--that's the love story, unless you count Frank's love for radio as one (you certainly can't count the station staff's hilariously horny shenanigans as anything like romance; passion, maybe--romance, no way!). Anyone familiar with the tales of Lake Wobegon knows Keillor's flare for making baggy-pantsed comedy out of everyday mishaps. From the safe-for-the-whole-family contents of those stories he here turns to lewder and cruder (but on other pages, more intellectual) occasions for laughter--and he's never been funnier! This is a comic masterpiece. (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1991)0670818577Ray Olson
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
On the air and in print, Keillor has been telling wonderful stories for years, but this is his first novel. It is, as you might expect, brimful of characters, full of northwoods angst, spiced with a little sex, and cynicism and sentiment have been neatly interwoven. It is the story of a Minneapolis radio station from its launch by the Soderbjerg brothers, Ray and Roy, who hope to attract attention to their foundering sandwich shop (the call sign translates to ``with lettuce and tomato''), to the time, 30 years later, when it begins to founder under the onslaught of television. Dozens of innocent and not-so-innocent girls and scheming, heavy-drinking men live out their lives among its studios and microphones: one of Keillor's most cunning strokes is to saunter back and forth between the realm of the radio and the real world of his performers, including boozy gospel singers, saintly Dad Benson and his horrendous radio daughter, and smart young Frank White, who alone makes the transition to TV. Episodic, often absurd, frequently uproarious, it is a poignant reminder of a time that never was but probably should have been. 250,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; first serial to the New Yorker; BOMC featured alternate. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The glory days of Midwest radio prove the ideal subject for old radio-hand Keillor, now writing at the height of his awesome power, which could make a homesick cat laugh. Brothers Ray and Roy Soderbjerg set up station WLT (With Lettuce and Tomato) in Minneapolis in 1926 to draw crowds to their wilting sandwich restaurant. The station proves a gold mine after the two reluctantly agree to allow commercials, and the brothers turn their somewhat divided attention (Ray's chief vocation is sex, Roy's inventing the unnecessary) to the new medium. The novel takes off on a sustained joyride as a hilarious bunch of characters are hired to fill the air with the cornball, pseudo-pious, pseudo- populist fare that held the Midwest in thrall until television offered a superior snow job. Keillor continually contrasts the smutty, lust-filled lives of the cast and crew in the studio with the wholesome, homespun drivel they broadcast. On air, for example, Little Becky is a winsome angel, but look out--the chain-smoking child star will perform the crudest of practical jokes on the unwary. A blind sports announcer, a crushingly cheerful songstress confined to her wheelchair by polio and fat, and a dissolute group of gospel singers are just some of the superb oddities that people Keillor's pages. A straight man to these comic figures and the novel's hero is young Francis With, who comes of age at the station and goes on to great things. The comedy is as broad as it comes, but it also has a depth that includes poignancy, particularly as it records the station's downhill slide. Humor and insight into the heart of raunchy America don't get any better than this.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
