Tales of the City, Suburb and Country

A new compilation pulls together the best of This American Life.

This American Life has taken public radio comedy a million miles beyond the placid shores of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Each quirky broadcast tackles one giant subject (such as "Do-Gooders," "Apocalypse" or "Music Lessons"), with several correspondents each presenting idiosyncratic perspectives on the topic. This new double-CD compilation, Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes (Rhino), features 11 young writers (largely from Generation X) and illustrates both the strengths and the weaknesses of the series.

On the opening segment, host-interlocutor Ira Glass interviews Jack Hitt about a wretched production of Peter Pan Hitt once saw (one of the "Fiascoes" of the album title). It's a funny recapitulation of a disastrous performance: Tinkerbell was played by a light bulb, Captain Hook's hook fell off during his first scene and paramedics interrupted the play to tend to an actor who'd fallen 15 feet onto the stage. But you soon realize that there's no payoff to the story. Hitt's talking about a performance at a small Southern college in 1973. He doesn't try to contact one of the actors or director 25 years later to commiserate, nor does Hitt compare this flop to current Broadway and Hollywood turkeys. Instead, we simply get Glass and Hitt's derisive laughter. They come off as two big-city hipsters in a well-funded studio smirking at small-town amateurs.

At its worst, This American Life goes after goldfish with a cannon. But the strong monologues more than compensate for the collection's flaws. In the funniest segment, Cheryl Trykv recalls visiting Palm Springs as a teenage malcontent, aimlessly riding her bike through moneyed cul-de-sacs. She mellows out after a chance encounter with Shirley Booth, TV's Hazel. "Hands on a Hard Body" is an interview with the winner of a Texas endurance contest: He won a truck by having held onto it for three days straight. It's as biting as a King of the Hill episode.

The best audio essay, "Shooting Dad," comes from music critic Sarah Vowell. In a deceptively quiet, lisping voice which many have already compared to Cindy Brady's, the ultra-liberal Vowell talks about being raised by her gun-making father. "All he ever cared about was guns," she recalls, "all I ever cared about was art." As an adult, she attempts a reconciliation with Dad, whom she interviews on the album. She comes to realize that they have much in common: "We're both a little hard of hearing—me from Aerosmith, he from gunsmith." Her father requests that his cremated ashes be shot out of a cannon he spent two years building. She is mature enough to see this act as a "performance piece" and vows she will abide by her dad's wishes: "I will plunge his remains into the barrel and point it into a hill so he doesn't take anyone with him. I will light the fuse. But I will not cover my ears… I want it to hurt."

The compilation concludes with another strong vignette. Marissa Bridge describes the "Apology Line," a now-defunct Manhattan phone number where total strangers could leave lurid confessions, or listen to them. The Line was started by her husband Alan, who was killed by an errant jet-skier. Glass asks Marissa what she would do if her husband's killer called the Apology Line. Quietly, she replies that she would forgive him.

The clever liner notes (designed by Chris Ware) are printed in the style of turn-of-the-century tobacco baseball cards. Fans wondering why their favorite bits aren't on the album (my fave: the guy who passed himself off as an original cast member of the Zoom TV series) can always download them from the show's Web site (www.thislife.org). Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes is a enjoyable introduction to a good radio show for the uninitiated. And when the correspondents drop their sneers long enough to actually listen to the people they claim to speak for, this album occasionally achieves true magic.