SOURCE: "Lake Wobegon: Mythical Place and the American Imagination," in American Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, Spring, 1989, pp. 5-20.

In the following excerpt, Wilbers traces the common features of a mythical place exhibited by Keillor's Lake Wobegon.

… At a time when live radio programs are an anomaly and there seems little time for all the things we busy Americans have to do, much less for listening to slow-moving tales of small-town life in rural America, the phenomenal popularity of Garrison Keillor's weekly radio program and the remarkable success of his best-selling books seem baffling. How can one account for this unexpected popularity? And what does America's enthusiastic response to Keillor's imaginary world tell us about ourselves as Americans?

When "The Prairie Home Companion" was broadcast live from the World Theater in St. Paul for the last time on June 13, 1987, it was the nation's most popular radio show. Two hundred seventy-nine...