Blue Guide to Indiana

by Michael Martone

An ersatz travel book for the Hoosier State

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 ( "What's a good recipe for Pork Cake?").

Genres: Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

Michael A. Martone is a professor at the creative writing program at the University of Alabama, and is the author of several books. His most recent work, titled Michael Martone and originally written as a series of contributor's notes for various publications, is an investigation of form and autobiography.

A former student of John Barth, Martone's work is critically regarded as powerful and funny. Making use of Whitman's catalogues and Ginsberg's lists, the events, moments and places in Martone's landscapes — fiction or otherwise — often take the same Mobius-like turns of the threads found the works of his mentor, Barth.

Reviews

[Nathaniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

The consensus by other reviews seems to be that the people from Indiana liked it, and the people from elsewhere hated it. Please allow me to submit another review in the latter category, albeit from someone who actually lived in Indianapolis for four years and doesn't dismiss Indiana because it's not New York. I dismiss Indiana because it's a stubbornly mediocre society that not only happily embraces its bottom-10 educational achievement, healthcare costs, executive/worker pay gaps, "worst place to work" rankings, and Kentucky-lite quality of life, but actively and self-denyingly goes out of its way to make all of those things worse because it can. There are plenty of valid cultural criticisms of Indiana that would make excellent satire without resorting to the whole ignorant elitist "it's Podunk because it's not New York and it votes Republican" trope, so I was cautiously optimistic when I tried to read this book, especially because some of the actual entries, such as "the trans-Indiana mayonnaise pipeline" and "the site of Wendell Wilkie's ascension into heaven" had the potential to be quite funny.

I was not impressed. This book is stilted and unfunny - not quite humor and not quite not, in a way that's just not enjoyable in either direction. Either Martone was trying to be as subtly pretentious as possible in a very arthouse, outside-looking-in way that will only appeal to a handful of other Indiana "artists" who wish they were New Yorkers but will never pull it off, or he's a product of Hoosier culture's trademark obliviousness and lack of self-awareness or imagination and is consequently not very skilled at actual satire. In either case, this book is a slog to read and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who actually understands what satire means.

[Lorrel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book “The Blue Guide to Indiana” by Michael Martone, is an excellent choice to read for its outstanding for its ability to blend fact and fiction effortlessly. The stories are somewhat true but with hilarious takes that they immediately grab readers and keeps them reading.
Martone uses light and humorous storytelling, while still being realistic. He does a fabulous job of blending fact and fiction effortlessly where there are points its meant to be funny but also to the point of at some points the reader can even find it hard to distinguish the two. These stories would also be for anyone who enjoys light, comic, casual fiction writing. Throughout the stories the author maintains a light, comic, sarcastic tone while still making it look like serious writing. For example, in the “Practice” section under the subheading, “What to Wear” the author starts by stating the weather and then goes into how visits should pack for rain and snow. He then goes on to talk about native dress, normal clothes, and then tribal affiliation, “involve bandana kerchiefs worn in ritual knotted styles, and colorful canvas and rubber basketball footwear.” Martone basically said they wear the same as what most people wear daily. He then goes on to state, “Visitors are asked to refrain from including such clothing in their travel wardrobe, as it often simple to give offense, and the consequences of such misunderstanding are many times sever and dramatic. The author goes from actually describing what one would wear if they were to visit Indiana to being sarcastic about native dress, to ending it in a light comic tone . Throughout this section and many others Martone incorporates these aspects which allow for pleasurable reading and a laugh or two here and there.
The book’s expert organization like a travel guide into short sections helps keep the reader’s attention throughout. Instead of just being a book composed of stories with varying topics, “The Blue Guide to Indiana’s” stories are each written to make up a section of a “travel” book. The sections vary in length from 1 to 6 pages with multiple subsections. By doing this it allows to reader to maintain focus on the quick paced stories. Some of my favorites include; The Sex Tour, Scenic Waste Disposal and Storage Sites, and The Sports Tour. Each of these examples do a phenomenal job of giving just the right amount of information and then moving on to the next subtopic. By doing this Martone structured his book to where it is hard for the reader to lose interest in a singular topic, because if the reader feels that one story is kind of boring, it’s not super long and the next one is starting right after that one ends. With this structure it allows for the reader to easily move through the stories at a quicker pace and if they are interested in a certain section, they can go directly to it and read the stories that fall in that topic.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spanning the gamut from eye rolling to laugh-out-loud funny, with the majority of the book falling into the mildly-amusing middle, Michael Martone's nearly-true travel companion, "The Blue Guide to Indiana," seems best suited as a welcome gift for those newly transplanted to the almost-mottoed "Heritage State" (if then Secretary of State Ralph Otter's first official act of office in 1979 hadn’t lead to an insurrection and bloodless coup) or as gag gift/stocking stuffer for the Hoosier native. Having been born in Indianapolis in 1973, and having attended and graduated from high school on the Southside (fourth-generation Cardinal) and Indiana University-Bloomington, I myself fall into the latter category.

Some sites that will be on the top of my list the next time I go home to visit family: The Tomb of Orville Redenbacher in Valparaiso, The National Monument for Those Killed by Tornados in Trailer Parks and Mobile Home Courts in Goshen, The Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline at the intersection of US 31 and Indiana 18 (between Miami and Cassville), The World's First Parking Lot in Plato, the Grand National Locomotive Drag Racing Finals in Whiting, Eli Lilly Land outside Martinsville, the First and Second Daylight Savings Wars of 1948 and 1955 in various locations north of US 24, and the Musée de Bob Ross in Muncie.

[Matt Chinworth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like the idea of this book. I’m also from Indiana and recognized many sites and references. Even so this book was a stinker for me.

[M. Sarki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Based on my present reading lately of the first three essays in Martone's "The Flatness And Other Landscapes", slipping this "Blue Guide" into my "currently reading" list was a mistake. This book should have been deep-six'd and allowed to never ever see the light of day. Come on here, Martone is no Bob Dylan who can play with his audience anyway he sees fit and still come out on top as big-time Creator. At best a juvenile retreat into indifference and unimportance, "Blue Guide" sucks dirt in every way possible. I found nothing even remotely interesting for me, and most everything I looked at was a complete waste of my time, of which, really, I have none left to spare. It is hard enough for me to even have an open mind when it comes to a thing called a "Hoosier", but I came to the reading of this book as Jesus would, my tolerance at the forefront of my label, and still I could find nothing to make parable or exact my talents on to make this putrid water into a drinkable wine. But in the meantime, after getting this nasty taste out of my mouth, I will happily continue on with Martone and my intensely serious reading of his "The Flatness And Other Landscapes" and be glad, I am certain of it, that I did, and do not hold as a grudge this awful joke of a book against him.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unsure how to rate this one because I read it for a class, but I will say that I enjoyed this book. If you're from Indiana, then you'll recognize how Martone paints an accurate picture of Indiana through fantastical descriptions and fabrications. This book does interesting work with creating setting and place without simply describing landscape. Martone creates a holistic portrait of Indiana, full of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most of the book is written in an authoritative, distant, dryly humorous style, but there are a few moments of real, intimate emotion, where you can see how Indiana shaped Martone's life. It's at the very least a fun read, and I would say it's pretty insightful at times if you take your time with it.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm from Indiana, so let's get that out of the way. This book is a fake travel guide to my home state and, while I was worried the premise would stretch thin for me after about 50 pages, I stayed amused and engaged the whole way. The humor works at different speeds -- some entries are only so slant that it'd be easy to mistake them for true, others revel in oddity like a Barthelme fever-dream -- but every now and then there's a little sadness, too. Just a touch, but in that touch and in the command of the public relations voice that allows for very little striking language is the real artistry of the book and keeps it off the Humor shelf.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slight work from a very good writer. That said, it's pretty funny, especially if you're the sort of person that enjoys reading about made-up things that sound sort of like they could be real things. This is a minor entry in that canon, but if you've already read everything by Donald Barthelme and John Hodgman, this is worth a look. (In fact, now that I think about it, I wonder if Hodgman's very Martonesque paragraph on Indiana in The Areas of My Expertise is a subtle nod to this book.)

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing: I am very into the idea of a fictional travel guide of Indiana, and I was looking forward to reading this. I've read books by John Hodgman and Ben Katchor that do similar things, and I love them. Alas, I did not love this. Some of the ideas are clever, but the execution just doesn't pull it off. More often than not, it felt like I was reading an actual travel guide, which is not a compliment. The only time I felt genuinely intrigued was when an entry started to become (presumably) a portrait of the author's forebears, but that moment ended too quickly.

[J.I. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever and surprising, this book, unfortunately wears out its welcome. The biggest draw of this text is the weaving of true and false, in which truths are sometimes wholly true, or sometimes just false enough to mess with the reader. The result is that Indiana feels both smaller and larger than it is, and this works marvelously. Unfortunately, it's just a dry guide, and while it's always funny, it never fully materializes into something actually great.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of fictions that pretend not to be fiction. On that level, it certainly scores high for me. However, I found Martone's humor to be a bit "played out." His attempts as satire seemed obvious and overdone. As a result, a book which held immense promise, to me, ended up producing not much more than a yawn. Nice idea; lacking execution.

[Chanel Earl]

This book is really funny but it isn't the kind of book you just read cover to cover. It's a lot better in small chunks. Also the jokes get funnier the longer I am Indiana, so rereading sections is often a good experience.

[Eric Susak · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is witty, but only mildly entertaining. Once you have experienced the gimmick, this fake travel guide loses its allure. I guess not even Michael Martone can make Indiana interesting for more than a very short while.

[Kamilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gotta admire creativity. He had me going for a bit. Even though we know it's fiction, his way of writing makes you second guess and say, "Hmm, maybe there is some truth to this". I think that's major talent. Some of it dragged, but I still admire his approach to this book.

[Jesse Cohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird and hilarious and dark and good. A kind of subversive paraliterature that I hope has a future.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

second time trying to read this: still kind of hate it, even as i recognize its genius. mostly for me this is vapid cleverness. then again, it's really, really clever. and certainly unique.

[Jess Carr · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was supposed to be good humor about the midwest and my new-found (or rediscovered) love of cornfields, but I think it's pretty lame. Perhaps I will give it another try at a later date.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Michael Martone should allow me to punch him in the face for publishing this.

[Tom Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of this was really funny but I'm sure it helps to be from or very familiar with Indiana.

[Theresia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proof that only intimacy can detail distance and familiarity can do singularity. Michael Martone, where have you been all my life?

[Angus Woodward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooray for fiction that pretends not to be fiction!