- By B.J. Hollars
- 2019, University of Nebraska Press
- 208 pages
Jump in an airplane in Chicago, head to L.A., and what do you see?
Clouds. Lots of clouds, a crazy-quilt of green farm-and-park patches, ribbons of road, and cerulean dots of water. What you don’t see are the interesting things lurking aground and in the skies of “flyover country,” but in “Midwestern Strange” by B.J. Hollars, you’ll spot ‘em.
You’ve suspected it for awhile: East and West Coasters must think the Midwest is not much more than pigs, cows and corn. We don’t make a fuss; in fact, we’ve “grown accustomed to being overlooked, which is precisely why outsiders ought to look a bit closer.”
Take, for instance, monsters. We’ve got them here in “flyover country”: there’s been a werewolf or maybe a whole family of them in Wisconsin for the last almost-90 years. Churubusco, Indiana was once the home of a whopper of a turtle – over 400 pounds, they say – or maybe “Oscar” was just a whopper of a story that dogged a man for the rest of his life, one or the other.
In Eagle River, Wisconsin, an alien served pancakes to a man near his house. So what did he do? Well, he ate them; wouldn’t you?
An “orange glow” was spotted in Minot, North Dakota a half century ago, setting up an intriguing argument against all UFO theories; and in northern Minnesota, a young sheriff’s deputy was the victim of something equally out of this world.
Okay, so monsters and aliens. What else?
Are you sure you want to know?
For nearly 40 years, the U.S. government ran a secret project that stretched from northern Wisconsin to Michigan, that reportedly had to do with local geology and that played havoc with TV reception and did other assorted weird things. If that makes no sense, add this: rumors swirled that it messed with the weather, too.
And then there’s a Minnesota runestone that may or may not have been a hoax. More than a century after its discovery, there’s still a little smidge of question.
For sure, what you’ll find inside “Midwestern Strange” is fun to read. It’s lively, and author B.J. Hollars has a wonderful sense of humor. It’s interesting, but it’s also way too short on scope.
The subtitle of this book indicates that it’s about “flyover country” but it’s missing a whole lot, ignoring many states, dozens of communities, and lots of equally interesting monsters and cryptids. This, but it includes a West Virginia tale of a Mothman, when there are Mothman tales from Nebraska and Oklahoma. It includes stories of Wisconsin’s Hodag, which was disproven decades ago. There’s nothing about chupacabra, nothing about big fish in central-states lakes, no hitchhiker stories, no ghost tales.
That doesn’t mean this is a bad book; it’s just short in so many ways. If that’s OK and you want a mere taste of weird, then “Midwestern Strange” is a book to have. If you want more meat to your men from space, though, you can fly over this book.
Terri Schlichenmeyer is a book reviewer from La Crosse.
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Book review: 'Midwestern Strange' overlooks states, communities - Superior Telegram
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