Fountains of Youth

Contrary to the review above, Garrison Keillor is neither a journalist nor an apt comparison to Lester Current. (Instead, envision Charles Kuralt on a bender.) Also - being enamored with the South is not a prerequisite for appreciating charm. That said, Fountains of Youth's deceptively simplistic narrator belies a host of ironies, namely that this clever little story amounts to something more than standard Southern lit. At times it almost reads more like magical realism. For starters, Stillwater is indeed a mythical land: rednecks and racism are inexplicably absent from this collection of impoverished rural Southern communities. (And I don't want to give too much away here, but look what they do to the Dixie flag.) While its not lit on the level of Marquez, careful readers might be surprised to learn what's really going on in this little county.