July 22, 2022

Some Small Talk with Garrison Keillor
(Interview & Essay)

The legendary writer and performer shares a few thoughts… and a story.

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In April 2017, Garrison Keillor performed at the Dennison Theater in Missoula, Montana. Our editor Ryan Friel attended the show and chatted with Garrison afterwards in the parking lot, handed him an issue of our journal. Later in the fall of 2017, we contacted his agency about doing an interview, but were unsuccessful in landing it. A bit later in early 2018, we emailed him some questions in the hopes to revitalize the attempt at an interview. Our poetry editor, Lowell Jaeger, had helped us formulate some of the questions to make us sound smarter than we are. A little later in May 2018, Garrison sent us some answers… which we never published. My mom had died while we were getting that issue to press and things were messy. As I sent the files off to the printer on deadline, bits and pieces of the issue lay scattered on the floor, blown by the wind, including the short interview with Mr. Keillor. Flash forward four years… and in honor of the vortex we find ourselves in, we reached out to Mr. Keillor to re-connect and update the interview. Kindness, and small talk, does indeed make the world go ‘round. — Brian Schott

Whitefish Review: Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” What’s your best advice for us to hold the center?

Garrison Keillor: The center, I believe, is civility, which makes it possible for us to go about our daily lives and do what we must do, knowing we can count on others for understanding and support when needed. I believe that language is at the center of this civility, and that literature has the power to reflect us to ourselves and bind us to each other. Yeats endured murderous times in Ireland and Europe, when millions fled from a broken civilization for America, and now America feels broken to a great many of us natives. For my own part, I feel that comedy is at the center and so I’ve embarked on a new career as an octogenarian standup comic, performing in red states to audiences mostly in political disagreement with me and making them laugh about daily life and old age and my life story. Comedy is a cure for self-righteousness which is at the heart of the problem.

WFR: Let’s talk about the power of story—the stories that we tell ourselves as individuals and the stories we tell collectively as a culture—and how that directs us. Stories also create character. What story inhabited you as a young man? 

Garrison Keillor: I grew up among Bible believers and we sang the hymn, “I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love.” It was a separatist sect, low-church, no clergy, so you had Bible readings in which farmers, carpenters, used car salesmen, pored over the parable of the prodigal son, the sermon on the mount, trying to discern the nuances. The other story was that of my grandfather James Keillor who died before I was born so he became mythological, a heroic story about a man of great virtue and humor, and this story gave a sense of pride to a family that had no money and no social status. I had four aunts on the Keillor side, they all adored their father, and I absorbed their adoration, and it was a buoy to me through the troubles of youth. 

WFR: Why are poetry, literature, and storytelling important to you? 

Garrison Keillor: To be honest, because it’s American culture in an accessible package. I am a partisan reader, a jingoist, and when I read a poem or story, I’d like it to be set in a place other than up in the sky or the mind of the narrator. If we’re in Montana, say so. At least, give us a clue. Writers don’t want to be considered “local” writers, but everybody has to be someplace, and I lean toward writing by my fellow Americans in hopes of learning more about this vast mysterious country of ours. Jim Harrison, Richard Hugo, Tom McGuane are Montanans who deal in the universal, but they still ought to be willing to show a driver’s license.  

WFR: What makes a poem breathe? 

Garrison Keillor: It breathes when it’s read aloud. If it can’t be read aloud to another person who thereby gets the poem, then it doesn’t breathe and it’s not a poem. 

WFR: What are the elements of a good story?  

Garrison Keillor: Somebody wants something. I want to take over the Whitefish Review and make it a magazine about fishing. The beginning of a story. Add a barroom, a tall woman with a mysterious foreign accent, and a monkey on a leash, a heavy rainstorm, and we’re halfway there. 

WFR: Can you name a few poems and stories that have demonstrably altered your life? 

Garrison Keillor: The story of the prodigal son, for one. “A Blessing” by James Wright. And a sonnet I wrote for a woman who eventually married me. 

WFR: Do you feel there is a narrative dysfunction in our culture right now? 

Garrison Keillor: Yes. 

WFR: Words and truth are under attack today. How do we begin to write the next chapter? 

Garrison Keillor: Try comedy. 

WFR: Our environment is at risk as well. What story are we telling ourselves about the planet we live on?  

Garrison Keillor: I’m too old to comment. It’s the children who are at risk and it’s the teachers who talk to children who need to let them know. 

WFR: William Carlos Williams said, “It’s hard to get the news from poetry, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is there.” What “is there?” 

Garrison Keillor: What is there in much of Williams is humanity. We die for lack of comradeship. People join societies, go to dinners, attend games and reunions, in hopes of finding the real thing. It can be found in poetry. Shakespeare’s sonnet in which he says that a person suffering disgrace to such an extent that they feel contempt for themselves and are filled with envy of others—you poor miserable creature—can be redeemed by one who loves you. This is a life-saving message. You may find it in Tom Waits, too, or Hank Williams, but it’s there in Shakespeare. 

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Essay: Garrison Keillor

Small Talk as the Instrument of Civility

He talked about the weather and cars and his boyhood on the farm and ordinary things.

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A male nurse did a blood draw on me the other day, and as he tied the rubber strip around my upper arm, I said, “I’ve had this done about seventy times, you’re competing against some of the best, and you know that women are better at it than men. They have the kindness gene. Men are inherently aggressive. In your unconscious mind, you’re stabbing an enemy.” He laughed, a genuine hearty laugh—I’ve been in the business a long time, I can tell genuine from forced—and stuck me and said, “I’m afraid that was only a C plus. You made me self-conscious.” He chuckled.

In my old age, I believe in small talk as the conduit of civility. I got this from my dad who, though he was a devout Christian, loved to pass the time of day with strangers. The dictates of our faith commanded him to witness to them about Jesus and quote “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” but he didn’t, he talked about the weather and cars and his boyhood on the farm and ordinary things. This was curious to me as a kid, his friendly chatter with sinners. It’s still impressive to me today.

The same day I got a COVID test from a nurse, in which she pokes the long Q-tip up the left nostril and into the cerebellum. I said, “You’ve done this before, I’m assuming,” and she laughed. I said, “You probably have dreams about it at night.” She laughed again. Up went the Q-tip and I flinched and she said, “Sorry, it’s harder to give it to tall people,” and then I laughed.

I’m from an innocent time when people made small talk with each other, no matter who. In these times, when identity—race, gender, sexual preference—is on everyone’s mind, we hesitate. But so much of civility in America is in the form of light-hearted small talk, in passing encounters with strangers, you say, “How’s your day going so far?” and the stranger replies and you make a moment of it. Life is hard, winter is on the way, the kids are driving us crazy, but you and I, friend, are comrades in the quest for meaning and the struggle to get by.

And so, heading off in a cab to church on Sunday, I notice the driver’s last name, Rivera, and think of Bombo Rivera, the Twins center fielder, and a song I wrote about him (“All the men love Bombo because he loves to play, and all the women love him cause his name ends in E-R-A”) but this is New York and Bombo was back in the Seventies, long before the driver’s time, but I say, “That Series game last night was sure worth staying up for,” and he said yes and mentioned Rosario of the Braves who was a favorite player of mine when he played for the Twins. “He’s from my hometown in Puerto Rico,” said the driver.

And there you have it, a magical connection. Eddie Rosario is a great player to watch, a clutch hitter, known for his tendency to swing at the first pitch, and in the eighth inning the night before he robbed Houston of a double with a dash to the left-field wall and an amazing backhand catch that you had to go online and click the replay six or eight times to believe. And then he trotted, cool as could be, back to the dugout.

The driver had never been to Minnesota but he knew Rosario had played there. He asked what Minnesota is like—he’d heard it gets cold—and I said, “The winters are beautiful and the people are very kind.” The driver said he has four children and wasn’t happy with public schools in the Bronx. I wrote their names down and said I’d pray for them. We pulled up in front of church. He asked what Episcopalians are about and I said we believe God loves us and wants us to be at peace with each other. He agreed. I overtipped him.

An amazing catch in left field leads to a moment of fellowship and a statement of faith. I walked into the hushed silence and the Gospel reading was from Mark, where Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourself. One way to show love is to talk to each other, even small talk.