This is one of the oddest books I've ever encountered. It's also grim, poignant, disturbing, and funny - that's a hard combination to beat. Simply put, it's a selection of small news items culled from the newspaper of a small Wisconsin town in the last 15 years of the 19th century, along with some photographs made from a long-forgotten pile of glass plates of the same vintage. Doesn't sound exactly riveting, does it? But this little community seems to have suffered a vast assortment of tragedies, from small personal ones to full-scale disasters, and the selection and sequencing of these tidbits throughout the book becomes very like an epic poem - or dirge... Epidemics of diptheria, plagues of arsonists, an inordinate number of people going insane - punctuated by the occasional droll item, such as the fellow who got his false teeth stuck in his throat "while masticating a piece of tough beef steak... The doctor was unable to extract them, and so poked them down." Ouch. Then there's the woman who, long given to stomach troubles, "expelled a big frog from her stomach... All the physicians in the city are deeply interested in the case." A 15-year-old was lost in the woods for two days and nights "and temporarily deranged by the experience"; a 16-year-old was "made idiotic by the use of tobacco" (!). Within the next few weeks there were barn-burnings, suicides, and an accusation of witchcraft - and this doesn't begin to cover all the bases.

There's some discussion as to whether these events were unusually frequent for the time, and what it might have meant, but mostly the book just itemizes events and lets the impact build.

Not your basic feel-good book - but if you'd like some real-life American Gothic, try this.

Released on Thursday, November 07, 2002 at US Mail in Fellow BXer, Controlled Release USA.

I'm sending this to BCer cadumcadum. (Be sure to check out the near-poetry of the little keyword summaries at the beginning of each chapter...)

What a fascinating book !
The photographs are just excellent. I will start on it ASAP. Of course my husband also wants to read it...
There are quite a few bookcrossers interested so I will get moving...
Thank you so much GoryDetails for sending this book. I will enjoy.

Excellent photos. Gothic with a twist. Interesting.
Available now.

Released on Sunday, February 09, 2003 at Fellow bookcrosser in Miami, Florida USA.

On the way to gnissorckoob.
Enjoy!

Got WDT in the mail today. I've been thumbing through it, and all I can say is that it is beyond my wildest dreams. I love it already. I see why CadumCadum kept it so long. I see why GoryDetails described it as "grim, poignant, disturbing, and funny." As one who prefers real life to fiction, I gotta say this is my kind of book.

"William McCarty, the wild man of Spaulding's Lake, Rock County, has been captured again. . . . He was found hidden in a haystack."

Now to get reading, as two more Bxers are waiting.

Release planned for Monday, March 03, 2003 at Fellow BookCrosser in Evanston, Illinois USA.

Off to Bxer Rampallion . . . . There’s a lot I could say about this unique glimpse into history. It was not the photos but the 100s of newspaper excerpts that held me fascinated. Mostly about deaths and other tragedies in grim, Calvinistic rural America at the end of the 19th century. Apparently, they could not afford to even consider a social safety net.

Don’t skip the discourse at the end of the book on rural and urban paranoia and degeneracy. It seems that social “scientists” at the time blamed such evils as the steam engine, impressionist art, and “the mental activity of women.”

Looks fascinating. I have been eagerly awaiting this book since last fall!

Disturbing and fascinating. There are some eerie parallels with recent events, such as the woman who drowned all her children because she believed the Devil was after them. It's shocking to read about diptheria and other contagious diseases wiping out entire families. Not an easy book, but a worthwhile one. Thanks, GoryDetails and Cadumcadum and gnissorckooB, for passing it on.

Gruesome but fascinating. Shows that insanity and crime are problems in the country as well as the city. "Gov. Schofield will take steps to provide, if necessary, for the care of Mary Sweeny who has caused so much trouble . . . by smashing plate glass windows. This woman. . . . once taught school in Marquette, Michigan, and Stevens Point in this state. . . . Mary says she doesn't know why she breaks windows and only does it when the craze seizes her. She uses cocaine liberally on such occasions, saying it quiets her nerves. (April 1897)'

I forgot to mention that this book is making a brief stop with Mozzfan and will then go on to oldreader.

Being a Chicagoan, I have always thought of Wisconsin as a place that produces beer, cheese, and serial killers. It scares me. So this book is going to be great fun!

Mozzfan was kind enough to take this to the post office for me. Oldreader, I hope you enjoy it!

can't wait to read.this will be like being home and going through mom and grams old newspapers,thanks

This was a very interesting specim,en....mailing to oh-jeez -tower.did not recognize any names but definitely places.Since I grew up in Wisconsin many were familiar to me.hard lives back then.makes me glad for all the modern med advances.

How good it is to get a book in the mail! And this one looks like a mighty fine little read! However, right now I'm on a reading marathon so I can finish a bunch of books that I'm going to release in Brazil. I'm leaving for this vacation in a week, I'll be gone for a month, and when I get back I'll check it out as soon as possible, and then send it on its way to an interested Italian BookCrosser: Lilybert.

Also, this book was registered before I was even a member; that's pretty cool!

Stunning! An unusual and intriguing look at misfortune, mayhem, and the macabre. It is no surprise that Michael Lesy organized this book for his Ph.D. thesis. It was deinitely desgined only after careful consisderation of content, and precise thought of placement.

The photographs were at times captivating, and at times a bit absurd. The stories were brief looks into the lives of Wisconsins, most of them going through economic hardship, which led to a world of afflictions. Michael Lesy's discription of Wisconsin was chilling and powerful. Wisconsin Death Trip will leave a long impression on me.

This book's next reader lives in Italy.

I have just returned from mailing the book.

Received today the book from oh-jeez-tower. And so WDT is now in Italy! :-) I loved the documentary (same title) so I'm looking forward to read (and look at) this.

Then it's going to have a bit of a trip - ha ha - through Italy, USA again and UK.

Here's the ring:

donniedarko
Leggiona
Muvrino
Beckys
LaVale
Matrix
YowlYY
albertofarina
Kimberlie
Theresa-A
junegirl
kalahari
miriam2

A precious and disturbing witnessing. Very interesting from a social point of view, though a bit tiring for its episodic structure. The eerie illustrations reminded me of the "book of the dead" seen in "The Others"... All in all I preferred the documentary, which gave a sense of narrative cohesion to the stuff.

Here it is!
Nice match with gloomy Harry Potter #5 I must say... that's the book I'm reading at the moment of the arrival.

I am one of those city people who have always thought life in the country was swell.
I've always wondered, looking at old photographs, what kind of people they were, what their life was like... now I have a closer idea!
Very interesting, with an enlightening final essay.
Off it goes to muvrino now!

Arrivato! Molto curioso... un po' inquietante, anche x' ho appena visto il film "The Ring" e non so x' ma ci ritrovo la stessa atmosfera....

Arrived! It's so odd at first sight... it reminds me the atmosphere of the film "The Ring" that I've seen recently.

Just found in my mailbox. Thank you!
Please, be very VERY patient: my house is full of bookrings and so...it will take a lot to read all of them.

Beckys mi ha portato oggi questo libro...ci metteó unpo'a leggerlo.
Today Beckys gave me this book...I will take sometime to read it!

l'ho spedito a YowlYY una vita fa, ma non l'ha mai ricevuto.
Mi sa che è andato perso :(

I was just thinking of this memorable book. I'm sorry to see it's not bookcrossing . . . Where is it?