The master of the nearly true is back with The Blue Guide to Indiana, an ersatz travel book for the Hoosier State. Michael Martone, whose trademark is the blurring of the lines between fact and fiction, has created an Indiana that almost is, a landscape marked by Lover's Lane franchises and pharmaceutical drug theme parks. Visit the Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline and the Field of Lightbulbs. Learn about Our Lady of the Big Hair and Feet or the history of the License Plate Insurrection of 1979. Let Martone guide you through every inch of the amazing state that is home to the Hoosier Infidelity Resort Area, the National Monument for Those Killed by Tornadoes in Trailer Parks and Mobile Home Courts, and the Annual Eyeless Fish Fry. All your questions will be answered, including many you never thought to ask (like: "What's a good recipe for Pork Cake?").
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"Michael Martone is a man with a mission, a fabulous inventor of history and memory, landscape and people. His quirky, magical tours hurl the reader across the borders between fact and fiction into a country of the mind where what we desire and fear fills our senses. Take the tops off your convertibles and fly! Indulge your secret curiosities! Trust The Blue Guide to Indiana to point you to some of the most delightful places on the planet."
—Melanie Rae Thon
From the Back Cover
Michael Martone, whose trademark is the blurring of the lines between fact and fiction, has created an Indiana that almost is, a landscape marked by Lover's Lane franchises and pharmaceutical drug theme parks. Passages from this book have been published in Indiana newspapers as feature articles on what to do this weekend or as suggestions for family vacations. Tourists have been directed to visit the Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline and the Field of Lightbulbs. They have been told about Our Lady of the Big Hair and Feet and taught the history of the License Plate Insurrection of 1979. The Blue Guide has it all, everything one would ever want to know about the home of the Hoosier Infidelity Resort Area, and much we'd never imagine (including a recipe for Pork Cake). The book opens with a letter from the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, inviting visitors to sample "refreshing paw paw canapes and free glasses of buttermilk cider drawn from our state's native bison herds" at state rest areas, and to considering working toward a PhD within the state's picturesque borders: The state, recognizing the value of your visit, now offers the only PhD in tourism in the country at its Bloomington campus of Indiana University where out-of-state tuition is less than that paid for those in-state. The degree can easily be obtained during your two-week jaunt through the state if you utilize the regional campuses and distant learning facilities. Revenue from the tourism industry, according to the 1990 census, contributes nearly two-thirds of our state's gross income (coming in ahead of agriculture and hard currency derived from out-of-state relatives sending checks and money orders to their locally domesticated kin). The book closes with a chilling Author's Note that epitomizes Martone's work: It is untrue but nearly believable; and it renders the mundane horrific and the tragic hilarious. The Blue Guide to Indiana is an extension of Martone's previous work, in which he often composed fake essays in the voices of real celebrities. Like Borges and Flann O'Brien, Martone uses parody to reveal the deeper truths about our culture. Within the frame of satire he works to add to the unease of the moment, bombarding our perceptions with strange juxtaposed data, always calling us to ask, "Is this real or not?"
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun romp through mythical Hoosier land,
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This review is from: Blue Guide to Indiana (explanation: This book is not actually part of the "blue guides" series.) (Paperback)
I was fortunate to catch Martone at a reading in Florida. It was great fun blending of reality and fiction, and as he said, when you don't have plot or character, you have to have humor. My favorite attractions include the Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise pipeline, the mount Etna active Volcano, and off course Eli Lilly Land ("Its a Prozac world"). The list is however incomplete, and I hope in future editions he will include the David Letterman weather station, where tapes of Letterman's early broadcasts are played 24 hours a day. There should be something to humor everyone in this book, and the cover is quite attractive - having been designed by the architect Michael Graves.
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