Wisconsin Death Trip

New York: Pantheon Books [1973], 1973. First edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Good+. Oblong 8vo. Unpaginated. Purple cloth with silver lettering on the spine. Black endpapers and pastedowns. Price of $15.00 on the front flap of the dust jacket. Jacket design by Kenneth Miyamoto. With a preface by Warren Susman. Illustrated throughout with several full-page black and white photographs. The photographs were taken in Black River Falls, WI, by Charles Van Schaik during the nineteenth century (from 1890 to 1910). Aletti and Strauss 222-223. Parr and Badger 216-217. Lesy's publication includes excerpts from contemporary Wisconsin newspapers and archives. A brilliant display of vernacular photography and grimoire, Lesy's book portrays Black River Falls as a desperate place beset by the struggles of an economy in transition. Bibliographers note that Lesy's presentation of history here is selective, with an approach informed by the New Journalism school. However, the United States at large was indeed transforming from an agriculture-foucsed economy to an industrial one, and the effects were keenly felt (especially at this time) as mass migration into cities depressed rural places. A penetrating and at times, unsettling portrait of rural Wisconsin. The binding very slightly shaken, but remains strong and secure; jacket with traces of edge and surface wear, a dampstain to the bottom edge of the jacket's reverse.