ST. PAUL (AP) – Maybe it’s that he’s hit retirement age, but Garrison Keillor wasn’t afraid to admit that his latest novel was easy to write.

“For me, that was manageable,” Keiller said of “Pontoon,” his 248-page return to Lake Wobegon. “I’m telling my publisher I want to write a series of short novels. Now that I’m suddenly a senior citizen, I’m don’t want to spend years reading a book.”

The novel will be published Tuesday, the same week that Keillor begins a new season of his long-running Minnesota Public Radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” The new book is his fifth set in the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, and its storyline will sound familiar to longtime followers of Keillor’s homespun tales.

When 82-year-old Evelyn Peterson dies, she leaves instructions that her ashes be placed in a bowling ball and dropped into Lake Wobegon. Evelyn’s daughter is amazed when she learns her divorced mother had a secret lover for years. Meanwhile, Debbie Detmer returns to her hometown to plan a big commitment ceremony on a pontoon boat in the lake. Add a couple of angels, a bunch of Danish pastors, giant fiberglass ducks and a flying Elvis, and mayhem ensues on land and in the air.

“It was always the plan to keep coming back to Lake Wobegon. My forthright young editor wanted me to do it, and I wanted to,” Keillor said.

Keillor has been talking about Lake Wobegon on the radio for more than 30 years. But locales like the Chatterbox Cafe, Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery and the town’s stalwart Norwegian and German citizens didn’t debut in print until 1985, when “Lake Wobegon Days” was published. The collection of short stories was a bestseller and earned Keillor a spot on the cover of Time magazine in 1985.