Guest, you need to sort out the tangle you've created. You're assuming that if we like PHC that we believe there is a place like Lake Wobegone that just isn't called Lake Wobegone by Keillor? That because it is closer to reality than say, other fictional places like Middle Earth, that we presume (foolishly) that it isn't really a fictional place after all but MUST IN FACT be a real place that Keillor is simply disguising by changing the names? So fit Northrup into this false presumption about our (apparently) false assumptions, please. Does he write about a real place, making it in fact autobiographical fiction (or that strangely named style called creative nonfiction?) or does he do like Keillor and make up a place, but you're just more convinced by it?