I am a big fan of Garrison Keillor and really wanted to love his novel Love Me, but it was plagued with problems and a difficult book to enjoy.

The main character, Larry Wyler, is a novelist who decides to leave his life (and wife) behind in Minnesota to pursue his dream of working for The New Yorker. Larry is narcissistic, a jerk and impossible to like. He is also the narrator, making the book even more unbearable. At no point in the story did I root for Larry to win at anything, I just wanted his long-suffering wife to speak up for herself.

The book vacillates between being a zany comedy and a serious story. I felt like it had split-personality disorder and neither route worked. The zany bits were especially awful and even included a side plot with the mob. Occasionally, Keillor's hallmark humor would burst out and I would get a good laugh, but those parts were few and far between. I found a lot of the humor to lean towards being vulgar and mean spirited.

The advice column letters were okay at first and a few were funny, but they mostly bogged down the pacing.

Oddly, in the last few chapters the overriding sentiment of the story was made clear and created some nice moments. The moral being don't take for granted anyone in your life, especially those who have been kind and loyal.

I probably shouldn't have bothered to finish the book, but I love Keillor and kept thinking that it had to get better. It didn't.