The first pilgrims through the International Arrivals portal at Leonardo da Vinci was Margie Krebsbach, face scrubbed, fresh, grinning, towing her husband Carl who looked stunned as if struck by a ball-peen hammer, and then the others came slouching an shuffling along, jet-lagged, brain-dead, and right away she spotted the thin, spiky-haired man in the blue blazer holding up the sign--LAKE WOBEGON--in one hand, high, and she let out a whoop and let go of Carl. "This is so neat!" she said, meaning the sign--the words "Lake Wogegon"--here!--in Italy!--Great God! Disappointing! Hard to say when I love listening to Keillor and have enjoyed other writings by him. I was disappointed that the trip to Italy by a group from Wobegon included so little about Italy. Mostly, the book set up situations for the characters to tell stories about Wobegon days. I wondered why it didn't just occur during a family picnic with rounds of story telling. This may have worked better as a collection of short stories. As a novel, it didn't work for me. The story never seems to gain any traction to move forward and I found myself reading just to get to the end.
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