Your IMPORTANTVILLE summer reading list
5 must-read non-fiction books with Indiana connections worth your time.
A racist group plotting to take over Indiana—and then the nation. A gruesome murder in Gary, and then a global movement to save the perpetrator's life. And a swashbuckling woman from Huntington who cracked enemy codes and waged war against Hitler's Reich.
They may sound like fictional movie plots. But they are all, in fact, true stories and ones contained in this first-ever IMPORTANTVILLE summer reading list.
For your enjoyment, I've curated some of my favorite reads in recent months—all of which have Indiana ties.
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, by Timothy Egan
In the 1920s, across the Midwest and in Indiana, the Ku Klux Klan infiltrated much of civic life, winning over preachers and politicians alike, all led by D.C. Stephenson. This propulsive, gripping account of his rise—and of the everyday people who tried to stop it—reads like an HBO period drama. But on the pages, Egan’s vivid history provides reminders of some of the worst impulses of Hoosiers. Even the Indianapolis Star contributed to the racism of the moment, writing, “The Negro is among us, and the race should be encouraged to progress, but that path should never lead to social mingling.”
“Hoosiers were joiners,” writes Egan. The book also explores how Indiana is fundamentally a southern state. Egan later observes: “In attitude and politics, Indiana was the most Southern of Northern states—North Dixie, it was often called—settled by people from Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.”
But there’s the courage of George Dale, the newspaper editor of Muncie’s Post Democrat, who the Klan had jailed for his scathing anti-klan editorials. And there’s the steadfast defiance of Louis and Rose Shapiro, the then-owners of American Grocery in Indianapolis, who boldly changed the establishment’s name to Shapiro’s Kosher Foods (you know them today as Shapiro’s Delicatessen).
Some of the most high-powered Indiana politicos I know—Democrats and Republicans alike—have devoured this book, becoming evangelists for it. The book is replete with Indiana settings and begins with a scene in Indianapolis. The cover is an image of Irvington. It’s required reading for every Hoosier.
And it feels strangely relevant and fresh at this moment.
Later this fall, A Fever in the Heartland will be the first-ever book selection for the IMPORTANTVILLE BOOK CLUB. (More on that soon). I’m working to bring the author to Indiana. Let me know if you or your organization would like to help make that possible through sponsorship.
The Improbable Wendell Willkie, by David Levering Lewis
You’ve followed Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. You’re reading about Mike Pence’s. And so with another Hoosier running for president in 2024, it’s worth returning to the 1940 campaign of Wendell Willkie, the “godsend to this country when we needed him most,” Franklin D. Roosevelt once observed of the Hoosier.
David Levering Lewis’ rollicking biography is the tale of a businessman turned improbable presidential candidate (sound familiar?) who left a surprising tradition of bipartisanship in his wake. The book and Willkie’s story are, according to Katrina vanden Heuvel, “a powerful reminder of practical bipartisanship, visionary internationalism, and committed civil liberties and civil rights.”
The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone
Elizebeth Smith Friedman grew up in Huntington, Indiana, but she would go on to, quite literally, change the world. The Shakespeare expert went on to crack the Enigma Machine employed by Hitler’s spies and more or less presided over the creation of the National Security Agency. There’s a love story, too.
The book is a movie waiting to happen.
Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero - The Tragic Life of Robert E. Lee's Father, by Ryan Cole
While this book doesn’t have an explicit Indiana connection, the author, Ryan Cole, is an Indiana resident, and is name-checked by Mike Pence in his memoir, whom he says “helped me get this story onto the page and stayed faithful to our version to make it as much about Indiana as about us.” Cole is a former speechwriter for Mitch Daniels (to the extent that Daniels let anyone touch his speeches) and worked for Todd Young.
The book is an often eloquent account of an American original and Virginia, and well worth your time.
Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, by Alex Mar
In 1985, in Gary, Indiana, a grisly murder happened, when a 15-year-old girl violently killed a Sunday school teacher. The death penalty followed.
It would be a depressing, irredeemable story—if it stopped there. Instead, the victim’s grandson forgave her. What happened next was a global campaign that even reached the Vatican and led to one of the most remarkable chapters in history.
And that’s just the first half of the book.
Oooohhh! Our historic nonfiction book club is covering A Fever in the Heartland in late August.
I read A Fever in the Heartland earlier this year. Incredibly well written but as a life long Hoosier it was disturbing to read about the influence of the Klan in Indiana. I highly recommend the book to all followers of Importantville.