A Christmas Blizzard: A Novel
by Garrison Keillor
This Christmas fable is a typical Garrison Keillor story, rambling with details of the far North United States, filled with minutiae. The absurd, the ludicrous and the ironic take center stage. It's Dicken's Scrooge updated with a uniquely Keillor humor.
James Sparrow has a strange but sometimes crippling fear of sticking his tongue on a frozen pump handle. He's not exactly afraid of doing it, but rather afraid the compulsion will make him stick his tongue to freezing metal.
A rich man from sales of an energy drink he didn't even invent, he just bought and marketed it, he has bought a Hawaiin estate and prefers to spend his winters there, free from the fear of frozen metal, but his wife adores Christmas and everything it brings in Chicago. She's on the board of directors of the ballet, the symphony and the theater.
Desperate to escape Christmas in Chicago for Hawaii, instead James ends up leaving his sick wife behind as he boards his private jet to go say good-bye to an uncle in Looseleaf, North Dakota who made his childhood bearable.
Once there, a terrible blizzard descends and he finds he can't bear going to see his dying uncle. James spends the night in an ice shack on the lake and is visited by many visions
As with any short fable the characters are not drawn in depth but rather more as archetypes. He's not cast as an evil man though, just one living his life without really living, running scared of frozen metal.
In checking out the book on Amazon.com, I was horrified to read the description and a review. Did anyone actually read this short book? The description doesn't remotely capture the story, saying it's a comic novel and he's going to see an ailing aunt but the power goes out. Heh? The review says James and his wife go to North Dakota, but it's only James who actually goes. At least they mention a dying uncle instead of an ailing aunt.
Oh well, if you're looking for a Christmas story that's a little out of the ordinary or you enjoy Garrison Keillor's monologues, this short book is for you.
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