May 1st was the 10th anniversary of the publication of Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving at All. So the theme of this blog is: no, not that, it's "reviews".
Authors often beg, and sometimes pay for, reviews of their books. (Note: I do NOT pay for reviews.) They're critically important for our success, both because they pump up our algorithms in various book seller and social media sites, and because they put the eyes of readers on your writing. Not literally. Ew.
Your review doesn't have to be as detailed as this one: A simple "I like this book", or even throwing some stars at it, helps greatly. Still, I really like this review, because, well, the reviewer thinks I'm funny. I've always said, if you can't be rich or have superpowers, be funny. Okay, I said it once.
In addition to the review, the Whatzup regional magazine also printed a 2016 article about the book's release, which you can find here:
https://whatzup.com/featured-writer-mark-r-hunter-the-writing-fireman/
Just in time for Indiana’s bicentennial comes a new history book,
that compiles everything notable about our fair state through the ages into one
tidy volume. Yes, it’s a book about Indiana history, but it is worth reading
anyway, not just because you really should know something about the state in
which you live (and in which you were probably born and raised, too) but
because it’s written by Noble County native Mark R. Hunter, and he’s a pretty
funny guy.
His take on Indiana history is thorough but irreverent, and even if
you have to cast a skeptical eye on some of his historical claims (I honestly
don’t think the prehistoric mounds in central Indiana were actually ancient
outhouses), you’ll probably learn some new true facts about your state by the time
you’ve finished the book.
In Hoosier Hysterical, Hunter begins almost at the very beginning
of Indiana history. He doesn’t start with the Hoosier state congealing out of a
mass of molten goo as the Earth’s crust solidified, but he picks up the story
just a little later, when the first humans wandered into the land we know so
well.
“Some of them made their way to Central America, discovered
chocolate, and lived in paradise,” he writes. “Others took a wrong turn while
circling Indianapolis, and boy, is that easy to do. They settled in the
Midwest, imported corn from the much happier natives of Central America, and
the rest is history.”
That history is the story that Hunter tells, from the settling of
the eventual state by those early natives, to the later infiltration of the
land by Europeans, to the centuries that the Indiana territory spent as a
wilderness battleground where those Europeans fought off the natives and each
other, established forts and settlements, and generally made a mess of things.
Hunter’s journey through Indiana’s history is long and detailed,
but it sticks closely to the highlights you’d find in a drier, not so fun
history book in school. You’ll find out about William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh
and Anthony Wayne and Tippecanoe, and all those other famous names that you’ve
heard about at one time or another, but can’t quite remember what it was that you
were supposed to remember about them.
The book’s heavy on what happened before the state was a state, and
what happened during the first hundred years that it was a state. The second
hundred years, not so much. Hunter augments the history, though, with trivia—which is very closely related
to history when you think about it. He gives us explanations of Indiana’s
symbols (did you know Indiana has an official state rock?) and he crafts
loving, if silly stories about all those Indiana things we’ve come to love by
living here all our lives. He even tackles the greatest of all Hoosier
mysteries, the origin of the word “Hoosier.” Of course, he doesn’t provide a
convincing theory of the word’s origination (no one ever has or ever will) but at
least he has fun trying.
There are also many chapters about things that make Indiana special:
the Indianapolis 500, the many famous people who were born here, the movies and
TV shows that were either set or filmed in Indiana, the state’s many parks and
natural attractions and many other tidbits and minutiae. Did you know that the
famous Coca-Cola bottle design was created in Terre Haute? Neither did I, but
now we both do. These are the kinds of things that make it possible to live with
even a tiny bit of pride in a state that rarely makes it to the top of the
lists of really important things.
We native Hoosiers have spent our lives in a state of constant
self-deprecation. We’ve had to, having been born in a state that most other
Americans wouldn’t be able to find on a map.
We’ve learned how to gently mock the state of our birth while
maintaining a quiet affection for a place that is actually pretty nice if you
really pay attention to it. That’s a balance that Hunter holds quite well
throughout Hoosier Hysterical, and the book is one more Hoosier product that we
can be proud of.
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You’re sure to find some places
to review our books here, or at least buy them:
· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
· Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark
R Hunter"
· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914
· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf
Remember: Every time an author
gets a review, their heart grows three sizes. More, if it’s a five star.
