Post to the Host

Host Garrison Keillor answers your questions about life, love, writing, authors, and of course, A Prairie Home Companion.

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Dear GK, You endorsed M.J.

July 27, 2005 |

Dear GK,
You endorsed M.J. Andersen's book Portable Prairie (with a blurb on the cover) and it has done well in the Midwest. The Boston Globe recommended it for summer reading, yet The New York Times and Washington Post have never bothered to review it. Are they snobs or just too busy to bother with anything outside the Beltline or in view of the Empire State building?

Carol Peden
Rapid City, SD

Carol, I loved that book, it just melted my heart, and I make no bones about it. I am very susceptible to any memoir of growing up in South Dakota that describes a Christmas trip to downtown Minneapolis. The book was much more than that, it was elegantly written and a work of art and Miss Andersen has a beautiful Midwestern voice, but the chapter about downtown Minneapolis at Christmas time made me weepy. As for the Times and the Post book reviewers, they do a pretty good job of covering the Flood, especially the books that people are talking about, and sometimes they go out on a limb for a book by an unknown. But you're right — the Times is a New York paper and the Post is a Washington paper. To me, that seems like a good thing.

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