Book cover for Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover Country by B J Hollars

Midwestern Strange

Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover Country

B J Hollars
2019 Released
224 Pages
3-4 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
University of Nebraska PressISBN 9781496215604
Midwestern Strange chronicles B.J. Hollars's exploration of the mythic, lesser-known oddities of flyover country. The mysteries, ranging from bipedal wolf sightings to run-ins with pancake-flipping space aliens to a lumberjack-inspired "Hodag hoax," make this book a little bit X-Files, a little bit Ghostbusters, and a whole lot of Sherlock Holmes. Hollars's quest is not to confirm or debunk these mysteries but rather to seek out these unexplained phenomena to understand how they complicate our worldview and to discover what truths might be gleaned by reexamining the facts in our "post-truth" era.

Part memoir and part journalism, Midwestern Strange offers a fascinating, funny, and quirky account of flyover folklore that also contends with the ways such oddities retain cultural footholds. Hollars shows how grappling with such subjects might fortify us against the glut of misinformation now inundating our lives. By confronting monsters, Martians, and a cabinet of curiosities, we challenge ourselves to look beyond our presumptions and acknowledge that just because something is weird, doesn't mean it is wrong.

B J Hollars

B.J. Hollars is professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He is the author of numerous books, including Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds (Nebraska, 2017), Go West, Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail​ (Nebraska, 2021), Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians, and the Weird in Flyover Country (Nebraska, 2019), Dispatches from the Drownings: Reporting the Fiction of Nonfiction (New Mexico, 2014), This Is Only a Test, From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us about Life, Death, and Being Human (Nebraska, 2015), and Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America. Hollars is also the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild.

More by B J Hollars

Dinosaur Dreams
Becoming Bobby Kennedy
Hope Is the Thing
Year of Plenty
Wisconsin for Kennedy
You Must Be This Tall to Ride
Sightings
Hallow This Ground
The Road South
Flock Together
From the Mouths of Dogs
Go West, Young Man

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