Melville House Books

So what would it sound like if the gentle, warmhearted chronicler of that down-home stretch of middle America known as Lake Woebegone turned his mellow, compassionate gaze upon the current presidential race? “One stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Palin,” snaps Garrison Keillor, in a fiery and stirring column from Salon. In fact, the famously affable novelist/radio host/poetry champion has filed an increasingly irritated — and eloquent — series of commentaries on the election. In this one, he notes, “It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning.” But never fear, he says: “Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but not inevitably.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.