Author's Note
This book is a retelling of a story I've told several hundred times o audiences in theaters here and there with many variations--sometimes there was a flying Elvis, other times not, and once the pontoon boat was laden with Unitarians, and once, for my own amusement, I had Debbie and Brent get married. I remember how peaceful and pleasant it was, just before going out to the microphone in the spotlight, to stand in the dark backstage, next to the rope gallery and the flickering control board in the wings, with the shadowy figures of my comrades, the backstage crew. I love those moments and this book is dedicated to those friends in the dark, the old guys, the young women in black T-shirts and jeans, who did lights and sound and shared that companionable silence with me. G.K.

Chapter 1. Good Night, Ladies
Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that. Probably she was sitting propped up in bed reading and heard the brush of wings and smelled the cold clean air and the angel appeared like a deer in the bedroom and she said, "Not yet. I have to finish this book." And the angel shook his golden locks which made a skittery sound like dry seed pods and he laughed a long silent laugh and took her pale hand in his. He'd heard that line, "Not yet," before. He was always interrupting people who were engrossed in their work or busy getting ready for a night at the opera or about to set off on a trip. Evelyn's brother died after his wife sprayed the house with a rose-scented room freshener that made Frank sneeze so hard he had a coronary, but he made it to the phone and called the office and told them he'd be late, and died. The angel took Evelyn's hand gently in his cool hand and off she went with him, leaving behind the book, her bed and the blue knit coverlet, her stucco bungalow in Lake Wobegon redolent of coffee and fresh-picked strawberries, her bedside radio, her subscription to the New Yorker paid through the end of the year. It had been a good wet summer, plenty of rain and as she drifted out her back door she noted how green the grass was. A cat announced itself from the shadows. A faint smell of burning charcoal hung in the air. A bright red ball lay by the walk. She wanted to pick it up and throw it but the angel rose and she with him and, hand in hand, they flew up into the sequined sky, the little town arranged below, all shushed and dormant, the double row of streetlights on Main Street, the red light blinking on the water tower, the dark fastness of the lake, the pinpricks of lights of houses where they all slept, the cranks, the stoics, the meek, the ragtag dreamers, the drunks, the martyred wives, and she saw a woman's pale face at a window looking for evildoers and the single pair of headlights threading the serpentine county road, and after that she did not look down. She flew up through a meringue cloud into the mind of God and the embrace of her sainted ancestors all gathered at her grandfather Crandall's farm house on a summer morn, the patient horses standing in the shade of a red oak tree, white chickens pecking for bugs under the lilacs, Grandma whistling in the milkhouse, holding a pan of cream. The windbreak of pine and red oak, the weathered sheds and barn, the hayfields of heaven.

It was a green summer day like what a child would draw, a crayon day with a few white cumulus children's clouds, and the sun with yellow radiance lines sticking out. It was a day when after breakfast Dad did not go out to do chores but sat down at the upright piano and played by heart O dusky maiden of the moors, my heart you do beguile—O do not hasten to your chores but stay with me awhile. There was one day when he did that and this is that day again. The day after she was begotten.

Copyright 2007 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books. For permissions contact Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.