Midwestern Journal (Electronic book text)

Midwestern Journal is a serious story embroidered with subtle humor in which the leading character is caught in a void between the past and the present. Midwestern Journal's form is unique. It is in the format of a journal or diary, a double diary. Each chapter is a journal entry by the main character, Edward Ellis, which is preceded by a diary entry by his great-grandmother. In most cases, these dated diary entries by the great-grandmother serve as a prelude to the material in the main text. Her material gives us a solid touchstone with the past, and it shows the Midwest symbolically maturing and declining as if it was a person, an aging lady to be exact. For the most part, the chapters are microstories complete in their own right; but when placed end to end, they make a larger story with its own beginning and ending. In that regard, the book has similarities with Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio; Caldwell's Georgia Boy; or Masters' Spoon River Anthology. A comic farmer friend, simply named "Pierson," is developed to allow Edward Ellis, the narrator, to occasionally play the straight man. More often than not, the two team up to misinterpret their surroundings. Pierson is a fatuous fellow, immune to modern thinking. However, few of the other characters are left unaffected by the seepage of modern technology, morals, and depersonalization into the cracks of Midwestern life. This is not a sob story. Actually many of the chapters are told in a humorous vein by a character who is trying his best to learn how to live. He is not bitter, only bewildered.