Many Garrison Keilor books I've read are variations of the same story, but this one is a little different. The protagonist is a middle-aged author who gets success from a first novel and moves to New York City to live the life of a big shot, leaving his wife behind in St. Paul, Minnesota. His dreams don't pan out and he finds himself pining for the life, no the wife, he left behind. The humour of the book comes from the protagonist's day job as advice columnist Mr Blue for a local St. Paul paper. A mildly amusing novel about regret and gratitude for the good things in one's life. ( )

This is a hoot for those who love the radio show on NPR "A Prairie Home Companion" or just someone who appreciates satire. Keillor is at his best with humor and pathos. I had a hard time deciding which category to put it in - humor or fiction. In the end, it is fiction so here it is. ( )

Keillor's prose is both wickedly funny and offputtingly dense. I was just starting to lose interest in the plot when it picked up and the ending turned out to be lovely.

Keillor is one of my favorite authors, and this little book didn't
disappoint. He's a humorist with a keen insight and a way with words
that I find very entertaining. This book wouldn't necessarily be
classed as humor, since it is a novel, but it was very funny. Had me
rolling a couple of times and chuckling all through it.

The enterprising Larry Wyler is frustrated with life in St. Paul, and
his marriage to Iris, an earnest Democrat out to save the world one
homeless person at a time. Larry is a writer and longs to live in the
literary world, though he's lucky if he sells enough articles to pay the
heat bill. After a bout with a bad head cold and heavy doses of
antihistamines, echinacea, Vitamin C and zinc, he manages to write a
best selling novel, Spacious Skies, that shoots to the top of the best
seller list and earns him a ticket to Manhattan, a million-dollar
apartment with a fabulous terrace and view, and an office at The New
Yorker magazine among the writers he has admired his whole life and the
legendary editor William Shawn. And Iris isn't at all interested in
going to New York. She's satisfied with the bungalow in St. Paul, her
work at the shelter, and besides, she wants to put in another row of
butter beans next spring. So Larry moves to New York alone and lives
the wonderful life of an author. Until he suffers from a severe case of
writer's block after his follow-up novel, Amber Waves of Grain, bombs badly.

An invitation to write a newspaper advice column, "Ask Mr. Blue," for
the paper back home provides a much needed distraction (and steady
paycheck). It's a pretty low rung on the literary ladder, but writing
commonsense advice to the lonely and the frustrated initiates Larry's
own long recovery and thanks to the miracle of email, he can do the
whole column from New York. He doles out wisdom to Exasperated, whose
wife gives up her judgeship for figure skating; Nice Lady, who is
abusive to the obese; and Secular Humanist, who suddenly notices his
girlfriend is Amish. Slowly, painfully, Wyler discovers that the
literary world he's dreamed of all his life isn't all he thought it was
and he finds a measure of clarity for his own life. And then he sets
out to win back his wife's affection.

This was a pleasant read and classic Keillor. It gets a 5. ( )

I found that this went on a bit, lost my interest halfway through and was a struggle to finish it. ( )