Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon

The fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon is real to millions of A Prairie Home Companion fans, who tune in each week for the latest news about its strong women and good-looking men. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Gopher Prairie, it is part of literary legend. Four novels have been set among its quiet streets: Lake Wobegon Days, Wobegon Boy, Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, and now Pontoon.

In the little town of Lake Wobegon, a “wedding” is planned down to the last detail, from the cheese and pâté to the flying Elvis to the pontoon boat. Meanwhile, the surprising secret life of a recently deceased good Lutheran lady comes to light, her daughter meets a lover at the Romeo Motel, and a delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark comes to town. That’s just the beginning of the stories and characters that drift in on Pontoon. It’s Lake Wobegon as you’ve imagined it: a tightly knit community that sometimes draws you home and sometimes gives you wings to fly away.