SOURCE: "Static on the Page," in Commonweal, Vol. 119, April 10, 1992, pp. 26-7.

In the following review, Beverly asserts that Keillor's style is not successful in the novel form in his WLT: A Radio Romance.

On page 12 of Garrison Keillor's mocking and rowdy first novel WLT: A Radio Romance, which tells the story of the rise and fall of a radio "empire" in mid-century Minnesota, "Roy [pays] Leo La Valley $10 to tell a raw one on the 'Noontime Jubilee,' to get a rise out of Ray." Here's the joke: "So Knute told Inga he loved her so much he wanted to buy her a fancy new bed—he said, I want one with that big cloth thing up over it? She said, a canopy! He said, no, that's under the bed and we're going to keep it down there."

The book tempts me as critic to advise simply, "If...