Book Review: Indiana Winter

Once again, I jumped through the ridiculous and often annoying hoops required to take part in my library's winter reading challenge. I so prefer to read what I want to read and not what they dictate or suggest. Still, I'm always lured in with hopes to win a prize for my reading. (I won nothing.) Thankfully, many of the books I had already chosen to read fit the categories outlined in this winter challenge: a recipe book (which I didn't review because I only copied one recipe), a new form of reading (the book I read on my phone), and a biography of someone (Diana and her boys). This book, Indiana Winter, by Susan Neville, fulfilled a category suggesting you read a book with "Winter" in the title. Thankfully, since the author is a writing professor at Butler University, the book was interesting and well-written.

Indiana Winter offers a smattering of essays about, you guessed it, Indiana in winter. The most interesting thing about this collection is that it weaves fact and fiction. Neville acknowledges she travelled around Indiana and gleaned snippets of overheard conversation. Using that dialogue, she intertwined some short-story telling into these essays. She visits museums, the women's prison, small town gatherings, the State Fair, and John Mellencamp's art opening. The essays have the feel of listening in on conversations, but also give the feel of Indiana's people and places. Her personal narrative about growing up with a manic-depressive mother is fascinating. I would love to meet this author someday. She won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her website offers an email address. Perhaps I will send her a letter.