On October 3, 7:30 p.m., the Efroymson Center for Creative Writing will serve as a venue on Hoosier author Michael Martone‘s Fourth Double Wide Tour of Indiana. Martone is the author of collections Michael Martone, The Blue Guide to Indiana and Double Wide, among others. Tragically orphaned at a young age, Martone was courageous enough to admit in Michael Martone that many if not all of his published works were actually ghost-written by his mother.
Critics reacted to Martone’s confession with both dismay and admiration. Washington Post book reviewer Beattie Watts decried the further erosion of author-reader integrity, while noted academic Egon Spengler published an effluent blog post congratulating Martone for recognizing the current Afterlife Employment Crisis and providing at least one specter a few months of steady salary.
But I digress, for Martone will not be covering much of Martone during his Conversations @ Efroymson event. Instead, he’ll be dedicating his time to the inspiring geography of the Hoosier State. And who better to do so? Martone so expertly undresses our humble plains in his The Blue Guide to Indiana, unearthing sights and hidden nooks even the most Hooiserly of Hooisers may have missed. As a recent transplant myself, I completely missed the newly renovated rest areas located just minutes within each state border. “Government appointees gladly greet you, the visitor,” Martone explains in his guide, “with refreshing pawpaw canapes and free glasses of buttermilk cider drawn from our state’s native bison herds.” After 8 hours of driving on a hot July afternoon, a glass of refreshing Indiana buttermilk bison cider would’ve been to die for.
Martone isn’t just intimately familiar with the Indiana landscape, however. He also wields a fearsome knowledge of the innermost workings of our state government, thanks to candid interviews and lengthy pen pal campaigns with state elected officials. An excerpt from one of his letters from the Lieutenant Governor is below:
“There is no argument that the State of Indiana is the Birthplace of Vice Presidents. Seven Hoosiers have held the second highest office in the land. Thirteen more have run unsuccessfully for the office. Indiana is, after all, the only state in the union which holds primary elections expressly for the selection of Vice President. Hence, the first lesson gleaned by the careful reader of his guide is that Indiana endows those of ‘second’ station with boundless respect and all requisite power. Thus, the constitution of the state recognizes the Lieutenant Governor, that would be me, as the ultimate executive in our government, with the Governor serving mainly as President of our Senate and as ‘Designated Father of the Bride’ in our traditional wedding service.”
(I remember my first traditional Indiana wedding. Not to dwell on one topic, but the buttermilk cider flowed like water.)
So please, come see author, Indiana expert, and Daniel-Day-Lewis-as-Abraham-Lincoln biographer Michael Martone on October 3, 7:30 p.m. at the Efroymson Center. Legend has it that his long, flowing, gossamer folicles grant wishes– but only if you snatch them from the air after they have been naturally shed. Please do not pluck the hair directly from Michael Martone’s head. And besides, this may be your first and last chance to see a sentient vacuum speak (see, in 1955, Hoover experimented with creating humanoid robots in an effort, according to then-CEO Jack Jenkinson to “beat the damn Japanese at something electronics-related.” Computers ran on vacuum-tubes back then, so this R&D process was completely logical. Thus, the Hoovsier was born).