Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories is a short story collection written by Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor

Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio personality. He is known as host of the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio...

, a humorous fictional account of life in small-town Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 set in the fictitious heartland

Heartland (United States)

Heartland is an American term referring to states of the Union that – as in the words of one commentator – "don't touch an ocean," whether the Atlantic or Pacific...

 town of Lake Wobegon

Lake Wobegon

Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor, who reports the News from Lake Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion....

. It was first published in hardcover

Hardcover

A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...

 by Viking Penguin, Inc.

Viking Press

Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

 in 1987.

The book is a collection of thirty-six of the author's "News from Lake Wobegon" monologues from his radio program A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...

, slightly revised for print publication. They are prefaced by "A Letter from Copenhagen."

Contents

• Untitled poem
• "Introduction: A Letter from Copenhagen"
• "A Trip to Grand Rapids"
• "A Ten-dollar Bill"
• "Easter"
• "Corinne"
• "A Glass of Wendy"
• "The Speeding Ticket"
• "Seeds"
• "Chicken"
• "How the Crab Apple Grew"
• "Truckstop"
• "Dale"
• "High Rise"
• "Collection"
• "Life is Good"
• "Lyle’s Roof"
• "Pontoon Boat"
• "State Fair"
• "David and Agnes, a Romance"
• "The Killer"
• "Eloise"
• "The Royal Family"
• "Homecoming"
• "Brethren"
• "Thanksgiving"
• "Darleen Makes a Move"
• "Christmas Dinner"
• "Exiles"
• "New Year’s"
• "Where Did It Go Wrong?"
• "Post Office"
• "Out in the Cold"
• "Hawaii"
• "Hansel"
• "Du, Du Liegst Mir im Herzen"
• "Aprille"
• "Goodbye to the Lake"