Home for the holiday

There's Otto with the freshly replaced kneecaps, who picks up our ice-fishing storyteller hitchhiking near Bemidji and shares an eelpout recipe on a herky-jerky ride. Then there's Gary, the "albino turtle" of a kid in a full body cast sprawled in the next bed at the Shriners' Hospital.

Freight-train-hopping Easy Bob, with his penchant for practical jokes, rides along on a boxcar to Seattle. And don't forget Ted, the Dutch clown who gingerly walks into the Minnesota State Fair and casts a suspicious eye toward the towering fiberglass gopher guarding the entrance.

The sidekicks are the strength of Kevin Kling's "Holiday Inn," his second stab at putting his delicious spoken stories down on the written page.

Kling is front and center in his 21 stories, which are sometimes touching, sometimes hilarious and often both. When he bounces his adventures off the likes of Otto, Gary and Easy Bob, it adds to the richness of the narratives. Throw in the uncles, grandparents, siblings and Mom and Dad, and it's just as delightful as his earlier book, "The Dog Says How."

This collection is loosely structured around a year's worth of holidays. The title comes from a Bing Crosby flick that the Klings would doze in front of after big holiday meals. "We especially enjoyed the old black-and-white movies, mostly because those were the only two colors our TV set got," he writes.

Kling has developed a cult following as a playwright, public radio commentator and actor. The pride of Osseo and Gustavus Adolphus College, he now travels from Australia to Tennessee to Seattle, spinning his yarns. Locally, he puts on an annual holiday show and performs at the summer Fringe Festival.

He dedicates this book to his mother, Dora Dysart Kling. Here's a sampling that reflects the flavor and pacing of Kling's prose, culled from his Easter offering, "The Bunny":

" ... Dad scoops me up, then my brother, runs us out to the car, sits us in the back seat next to my sister Laura, climbs in front, looks at his watch, rolls down the window, and. ...

"Honk, honk.

" 'Gol-dangit, Dora.'

"Honk.

" 'Gol-dangit.'

"Dad's in a hurry because our church is in town, we're running late, and it takes over forty-five minutes to get there in time for the service. My mother is in the kitchen, frantically putting on the potatoes, putting in the Easter ham, setting the timer (honk, honk), making sure the dinner will be piping hot and ready just as we pull in after Sunday School (honk). She quickly checks herself in the mirror, jiggles the handle on the toilet (honk), and emerges through the front door -- I'd swear on a stack of children's storybook Bibles -- the most absolutely beautiful mom in the world, the stained apron wrapped around her waist that shows to Dad she's worked right up to the last minute. She stands a moment, a statue, unties the apron string, and lets the apron drop, then deliberately moseys over to the car, climbs in front, shoots my dad a look and ... we're in third gear by the end of the driveway."

It's the start of one of many wild rides in Kling's new book. Buckle up and enjoy the journey.

Star Tribune reporter Curt Brown is the author of "So Terrible a Storm," a nonfiction account of a 1905 gale on Lake Superior.