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Midwestern Pulp: A Love Letter to Lake Erie
The Debut Novel from Mic Fox and Fort Famly
The framework and functionality of the modern [male] millennial appears to be based entirely upon narrative. There is no better example of this than in the cumbersome, non-coastal interior of the United States, where without the cultural distractions of a coastal city or the cultural heritage that comes with living somewhere that seasons its food, a Midwesterner can act and react to life's simple variables as they come and go. This pace of living creates a divide where one either submits to the mundaneness of the environment in the basement of their mother’s home or corrals with others, forming a group of comrades that builds a micro-culture unto their own. Midwestern Pulp , the debut novel from the critically unacclaimed author & illustrator, Mic Fox, focuses on the latter—funneling a group of real-life, completely-fictional characters that you, yourself, didn't not grow up with, through the experience of attending the funeral of a friend. Full of life, death, humor, and heartbreak, this poorly written attempt at self-exploration and dissection of the concept of "home" will inspire you to tip more at the bar and/or call up your 8th grade girlfriend just to "see how it's goin."
Review
“Midwestern Pulp is a triumph—a reflection, celebration, and indictment of the midwestern ethos. Fox’s wry humor follows in the footsteps of John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces and Don DeLillo’s White Noise in holding a mirror, however darkly, to banal cultural touchstones, teasing out the “beautiful strangeness” of existence. He takes on the almost Sisyphean task of peering through the normal in search of the sublime. It’s a neon-tinged novel calling out from the cultural wilderness of northern Ohio, forcing you to reckon with your own biases and wonder if it was you who missed the point and if you’ve been thinking about “home” incorrectly all along.”
—Will C. Farley, Author of Big Fish, Or Some Such Nonsense, willcfarley.com “...Mic Fox sculpts a tensile, living ecosystem, a nebula of collective resilience, profoundly nonsensical ingenuity, and the aporetic relationship between cultural survivalism, nostalgic reverie, and the persistence of the Platonic ideal of homeplace—the Derridean “at home.” Therein he lays bare a rich tapestry of straight-up cinematic diegesis and ethnographic fiction truer-than-life because it's totally made up. As trite as that sounds, it slaps...with heart.”
—Tim Woods, Your Bartender’s Bartender, Chief Juice Wrangler at Gästkellerei Wines “Feels like the first bite of Joan Vanderhyden’s hot dish in the church basement.”
—Ian Bush, Vibe Curator at Banshees Ritual
The framework and functionality of the modern [male] millennial appears to be based entirely upon narrative. There is no better example of this than in the cumbersome, non-coastal interior of the United States, where without the cultural distractions of a coastal city or the cultural heritage that comes with living somewhere that seasons its food, a Midwesterner can act and react to life's simple variables as they come and go. This pace of living creates a divide where one either submits to the mundaneness of the environment in the basement of their mother’s home or corrals with others, forming a group of comrades that builds a micro-culture unto their own. Midwestern Pulp , the debut novel from the critically unacclaimed author & illustrator, Mic Fox, focuses on the latter—funneling a group of real-life, completely-fictional characters that you, yourself, didn't not grow up with, through the experience of attending the funeral of a friend. Full of life, death, humor, and heartbreak, this poorly written attempt at self-exploration and dissection of the concept of "home" will inspire you to tip more at the bar and/or call up your 8th grade girlfriend just to "see how it's goin."
Review
“Midwestern Pulp is a triumph—a reflection, celebration, and indictment of the midwestern ethos. Fox’s wry humor follows in the footsteps of John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces and Don DeLillo’s White Noise in holding a mirror, however darkly, to banal cultural touchstones, teasing out the “beautiful strangeness” of existence. He takes on the almost Sisyphean task of peering through the normal in search of the sublime. It’s a neon-tinged novel calling out from the cultural wilderness of northern Ohio, forcing you to reckon with your own biases and wonder if it was you who missed the point and if you’ve been thinking about “home” incorrectly all along.”
—Will C. Farley, Author of Big Fish, Or Some Such Nonsense, willcfarley.com “...Mic Fox sculpts a tensile, living ecosystem, a nebula of collective resilience, profoundly nonsensical ingenuity, and the aporetic relationship between cultural survivalism, nostalgic reverie, and the persistence of the Platonic ideal of homeplace—the Derridean “at home.” Therein he lays bare a rich tapestry of straight-up cinematic diegesis and ethnographic fiction truer-than-life because it's totally made up. As trite as that sounds, it slaps...with heart.”
—Tim Woods, Your Bartender’s Bartender, Chief Juice Wrangler at Gästkellerei Wines “Feels like the first bite of Joan Vanderhyden’s hot dish in the church basement.”
—Ian Bush, Vibe Curator at Banshees Ritual
297 pages, Paperback
Published May 3, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 20, 2022
For someone who grew up in northwest Ohio in the 80s/90s this puts into words so much of what you forgot, but you can never forget because it is engrained in your being.
I don't know anyone in this book, but simultaneously know everyone in the book. They all lived at the bar where our mom would sometimes bartend. The first shifters coming in after just missing the second shifters who were heading to work at the plant, or refinery, or assembly line... the guys that when you come back home asked how Columbus (the big city) was going even though you haven't lived there in well over a decade. Mic reminds me how I tribal the people in Ohio are. It's a culture of it's own that's been insulated from other culture and if you don't get our culture... then screw you, we'll cut off our nose to spite you, caring nothing about our own face.
The backdrop story maybe happened to Mic, maybe didn't happen at all, but somehow every element of it you remember happening to you if you grew up between 1980-1998 in northwest Ohio... or east Indiana... or southern Michigan...
I don't know anyone in this book, but simultaneously know everyone in the book. They all lived at the bar where our mom would sometimes bartend. The first shifters coming in after just missing the second shifters who were heading to work at the plant, or refinery, or assembly line... the guys that when you come back home asked how Columbus (the big city) was going even though you haven't lived there in well over a decade. Mic reminds me how I tribal the people in Ohio are. It's a culture of it's own that's been insulated from other culture and if you don't get our culture... then screw you, we'll cut off our nose to spite you, caring nothing about our own face.
The backdrop story maybe happened to Mic, maybe didn't happen at all, but somehow every element of it you remember happening to you if you grew up between 1980-1998 in northwest Ohio... or east Indiana... or southern Michigan...
December 10, 2023
Regardless that I personally know Mic, this book was hilarious, outlandish and completely wild. I love that he wrote a book about familiar Ohioan things, esp including PIB and places very close to my heart. Congrats on writing a book Mic!!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews