The conclusion, meanwhile, is quite dated, referencing the clash between city and country life, and the “White Flight” from the big cities that occurred in the late 1960s and early 70s. Lesy’s introduction to the book is oddly coy about its subject matter, if not downright vague (claiming his “primary intention is to make you experience the pages now before you as a flexible mirror that if turned one way can reflect the odor of the air that surrounded me as I wrote this”), thus reinforcing the surreal feel. (Stephen King is evidently a fan, having used it as a direct reference for IT and the short piece, 1922.) Approximately 200 of those photographs are utilized here (in the Levy’s words) “as if they were events.” The book features copious vintage photographs taken by the late town photographer Charles Van Schaik (1852-1946), the negatives of which were discovered in 1970 and preserved by the Wisconsin State Historical Society. It was then that the community and its surrounding environs were gripped by a seeming epidemic of crime, disease and madness, exacerbated by the great depression of 1893. The subject is the Wisconsin farming town Black River Falls during 1890-1900. thesis for Rutgers University, it was published in 1973 by Pantheon Books, who provided a wholly unique layout. That author was Michael Lesy, a historian and photographer whose first book WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP was. A rare (perhaps sole) example of “surreal history,” WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP is a publication whose likes you won’t see anywhere else-including the output of its own author.
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