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Dear Mr. Keillor, Since your

March 9, 2004 |

Dear Mr. Keillor,

Since your weekly news from Lake Wobegon and your novels are so jam-packed with details, it makes me wonder if you have had to employ (for pay or otherwise) a continuity expert, as they do in films. (I'm the first to notice poor continuity in a movie, but never in you).

Just curious.

--Christine

Christine,
Continuity is a constant irksome problem when a 61-year-old man tells stories about his hometown and nobody dares interrupt him and say, "Wait a minute, that couldn't have happened in 1979 because she would've only been ten years old so how could she be driving that Chevy, you must be thinking of her cousin Sheila." So the poor fool just spins his wheels and digs himself in deeper. I once hired a bright young St. Olaf student to listen to old Lake Wobegon stories and try to organize the essential details into some sort of index or bible and she was aghast at the inconsistencies and gaps. I think I should hire a city manager to keep track of the place for me, and then I could go off and pursue my real ambition which is to sing in nightclubs.

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