Wisconsin Death Trip - by Michael Lesy (Paperback)

About the Book

First published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small, turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected photos taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik, and juxtaposed them against newspaper accounts and state asylum and police records.

Book Synopsis

First published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik.

From the Back Cover

A shocking portrait of a small town crumbling--socially, morally, physically and emotionally--under the impact of the great depression of the 1890s. This cult classic is now available again in paperback.

Review Quotes

Wisconsin Death Trip has become a cult favorite, an example of hybrid nonfiction narrative about more than an era and its people in Black River Falls. Lesy created a story of the seen and unseen, the spoken and the silent in small-town America at the end of the nineteenth century. . . . In that space between knowing and not knowing, Wisconsin Death Trip becomes mesmerizing.
--River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative

About the Author

Michael Lesy teaches in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts at Hampshire College. He is the author of numerous books, including Dreamland, Rescues, and The Forbidden Zone.