Pilgrims

A Novel of Lake Wobegon

Garrison Keillor

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571252442
• Year: 2009

Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her - he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place.

But Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response - fifty people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Carl's bossy sister, Eloise, Mr. Berge the town drunk, and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travellers, but ten applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all. At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel - as they enter alien territory, safely away from Lake Wobegon, they tell each other stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance
• Da Vinci
• Celibacy
• Remembering Gussie
• Narrow street
• Meeting Maria
• Norbert
• Mr. Keillor speaks
• The allied campaign
• Fending off the mob
• Tiny towels
• Roman holiday
• Windfall
• Beautiful man
• Gussie moves in
• What is his problem?
• Bad bad bad bad
• Anniversary
• A beautiful idea
• In the piazza
• Looking for Gussie
• Boyfriend
• The funeral
• Father Julio’s story
• At the vatican
• The homeward leg
• Epilogue
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright