A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor
I just finished reading this book the other night, A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor. I’ve never read one of Garrison Keillor’s books before, well, not one of his prose books anyway. I do have a copy of his Good Poems, that I quite liked. And I have listened to him quite a bit on NPR from his show A Prairie Home Companion. It’s amusing, and I’ll leave it on when I catch it, but I don’t actively seek it out.
A few years ago I was subscribed to The Writer’s Almanac podcast, and I quite enjoyed it. Thinking now that I should make sure that I am getting those podcasts again. Everyone needs more poetry in their lives, and not just in the classroom.
Now this book, A Christmas Blizzard, was a fun, quick read. Having listened to him on the radio, the whole time reading I couldn’t help but hear his voice as the narrator. Not that that was a bad thing. He’s got a great radio voice.
Certain aspects of the story are absurd and take a hefty suspension of disbelief, with very colorful characters, or caricatures rather, and amusing situations. This isn’t a fault at all as it was what really kept me reading.
It’s the story of a man who finds out the value of the small kindness paid on another human being. A brief description of the plot is that this very wealthy man is set to take his private jet to Hawaii for Christmas, as we are all known to do from year to year when the fancy strikes, no? Well during his journey he’s required to make a stop in North Dakota, in his old home town, and ends up stranded there by an extremely harsh Midwestern snow storm. No Hawaii for him this Christmas. He’s reunited with old friends and relatives, visits places from his past and reconciles with some inner demons and other issues with his past. It sounds boring when I describe it like that, but I’m not one to give too much away. Read it, I recommend it, it’s a fun little fable, and you’ll see the colors that Mr. Keillor uses to paint his tale are much brighter than the ones that I’ve used here.
I will seek out more of Garrison Keillor’s prose.