Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. In this season of celebration, celebrate Barbara Kramer of Belfast. That's fine with Kramer. What she is certain about, however, is that her delightful novel is ''not about Johnny Carson,'' despite the fact it centers on Bud Wilson, a fabulously famous late night television talk show host. The story opens in the quiet world of a middle-aged woman, a recent widow, living alone on Kramer's home turf, the New Jersey shore. With vague hopes of polishing off a master's degree she has been pursuing for years, she places ads in small weekly newspapers around the country, asking people to share any dreams they may have had about Wilson.
Responses pour in by the hundreds.
Some are humorous. Others are bizarre. But many are touching and fill deeply personal needs in the lives of their dreamers. In the dreams of his viewers, Bud Wilson can be a man wearing ruby slippers or a gorilla suit. He can be gigantic and powerful or pocket-sized and helpless.