Sunday, January 17, 2010

Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor is best-known for his long-running radio variety show, A Prairie Home Companion, and his series of novels set in the fictional hamlet of Lake Wobegon.

From his Q & A with David Evans at the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

In my youth I read the Bible diligently, Old and New Testaments, and it did shape me somewhat, just as they predicted it would.

* * *
Which literary character most resembles you?

Some folks would say Flannery O’Connor’s hitchhiker who murders the whole family, but I reckon I’m more like King Henry IV.

* * *
Who are your literary influences?

AJ Liebling, JF Powers, SJ Perelman, EB White and John Cheever, but they didn’t influence me enough.

* * *
What book do you wish you’d written?

The Da Vinci Code. So I could spend the next 10 years working on a novel and not have to do anything else.
Read the complete interview.

--Marshal Zeringue