Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America
- Book Review,
by Garrison Keillor
From Publishers Weekly
His Minnesota boyhood and the putative values of his state allow novelist and NPR favorite Keillor to conjure up a heartwarming case for liberalism, if not necessarily the Democratic Party platform. "[T]he social compact is still intact here," he writes of life in St. Paul, summing up attacks on that compact in a Menckenesque rant: "hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists...." Liberalism, Keillor declares, "is the politics of kindness," and he traces his own ideology to his kindly aunts and his access to good public education, including a land-grant university. Though he criticizes Democrats for losing touch with their principles, as when they support the drug war, he catalogues "What Do-Gooder Democrats Have Done for You," from civil rights to clean air, though he acknowledges, "The great hole in the compact is health care." "The good democrat," he declares, distrusts privilege and power, believes in equality, supports unions, and is individualist—"identity politics is Pundit Speak," he notes, which might get him in trouble with some interest groups. "Democrats are thought to be weak on foreign policy... but what we fear is arrogance," he writes, in a chapter notably short on prescription. Near the end, he offers another potent monologue, if not a rant, about September 11 and Bush's "Achtung Department" (aka Homeland Security). It doesn't all hang together—heck, Keillor's so loosy-goosey, he begins most chapters with a limerick—but call this Prairie Home Companion meets Air America. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
Garrison Keillor delivers a masterful diatribe against the Republican party and narcissistic, greed-driven, mean-spirited "conservatism." He begins his jeremiad in an oddly mannered draw-ling style bordering on self-caricature, but fortunately modulates that as he goes. Worried and angry, he warns against the threat to our democracy as the heartland virtues and civil compact he grew up with, given color in stories from his life, give way to a walled, gated, class-separated state. Overall, his eloquence, humanity, and common sense make listening a pleasure. A minor, but annoying flaw: The indexing is by chapter, and the chapters are far too long to make useful divisions in an audio format. W.M. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
In his contribution to the latest U.S. presidential election campaign, the writer-host of NPR's long-running Prairie Home Companion takes his stand on the ground of Minnesota to declare why he's on the side he's on. Being a Democrat "was simply the way I was brought up, starting with" the Golden Rule, the Minnesota maxim "You are not so different from other people so don't give yourself airs," and the Christian reminder "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Egalitarianism and fellow-feeling, manifested by good-neighborliness and a social safety net sustained by government, are the bedrock of being a Democrat for Keillor, and Democrats go wrong when they mouth slogans, forget about the powerless, and fail to focus on "real consequences in the lives of real people." Republicans these days--he allows that once they were better--are the obverse of Keillor-style Democrats, and his rants about them are an intemperate pleasure of the book. Its considerable other pleasures arise from the autobiography that constitutes its core; if he sounds like a parody of a Democrat when lambasting the GOP (and--unfairly, one can't help feeling--Texas and the South), Keillor is the voice of truth about where he grew up and went to school. (Full disclosure: this reviewer was taught in the same schools by many of the same teachers six years after Keillor.) Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
In a book that is at once deeply personal and intellectually savvy, Homegrown Democrat is a celebration of liberalism as the "politics of kindness." In his inimitable style, Keillor draws on a lifetime of experience amongst the hardworking, God- fearing people of the Midwest and pays homage to the common code of civic necessities that arose from the left: Protect the social compact. Defend the powerless. Maintain government as a necessary force for good. As Keillor tells it, these are articles of faith that are being attacked by hard-ass Republican tax cutters who believe that human misery is a Dickensian fiction. In a blend of nostalgic reminiscence, humorous meditation, and articulate ire, Keillor asserts the values of his boyhood—the values of Lake Wobegon— that do not square with the ugly narcissistic agenda at work in the country today. A thoughtful, wonderfully written book, Homegrown Democrat is Keillor’s love letter to liberalism, the older generation, John F. Kennedy, the University of Minnesota, and the yellow-dog Democrat city of St. Paul that is sure to amuse and inspire Americans just when they need it most.
Download Description
"We Democrats are deeply flawed people, we can be earnestly boring and awfully righteous about moral issues in faraway places. We can be weenies, capable of doing dumb things in the name of the common good. But we do stick to our guns. We believe in decency and public spiritedness and have refused to hitch our wagon to yahooism and have supported government as a necessary force for good. And we are passionate. This is a time for passion."" ?from Homegrown Democrat ""I didn't become a Democrat because I was angry,"" says Garrison Keillor, writer and host of A Prairie Home Companion, ""I'm a Democrat because I received a good education in the schools of Anoka, Minnesota, and attended a great state university and when I was eighteen, John F. Kennedy ran for president."" Here, with great heart and and wit and a dash of anger, Keillor describes the democratic values of the hard-working God-fearing people of Lake Wobegon and the idea of the common good-the civil compact that Republicans have been attacking for the past decade. The simple code of the Golden Rule that underlies Midwestern civility. The politics of kindness. The obligation to defend the weak against the powerful. ""Despite the gaggle of corporate shills, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, dittoheads, gun fetishists, shrieking midgets, and nihilists in golf pants, and their Etch-a-Sketch president with a voice like a dial tone, this is a great country. And what unites us is our moral duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger."" A reminiscence, a political tract, and a humorous meditation, Homegrown Democrat is a deeply personal work from one of America's best-loved voices"
About the Author
Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of the Saturday night radio show A Prairie Home Companion, now in its 25th year on the air. He is the author of numerous books, most recently The New York Times bestselling novel, Love Me. He is a member of the Academy of American Arts & Letters, the Authors Guild, and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.
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