A Hoosier Handbook: Humor, Satire and Parodies with a Hoosier Twist

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What would you do if Mark Twain’s ghost appeared on your back porch and began explaining the inner workings of Bobby Knight? Or, if William Shakespeare offered his take on The Tar Baby Story to the dismay of Uncle Remus a.k.a. Joel Chandler Harris? Or, if James Whitcomb Riley countered with his rendition of Romeo and Juliet?

What if you had to moderate the heated discussions that ensued when these four literary ghosts offered differing opinions of what a Hoosier is?

Now imagine Sigmund Freud in bib overalls lounging on a feed sack.

This politically incorrect book attempts to answer the question, “What is a Hoosier?” with a series of humorous vignettes arising from a fictional meeting on the author’s back porch. The ghosts of literary celebrities from the past discuss people and events to help answer the question. Joel Chandler Harris , William Shakespeare, James Whitcomb Riley and Samuel Clemens arrive to discuss the rare breed that defines a “Hoosier” while they sip on a mutual jug of moonshine. By morning’s light the author is left with a jumbled pile of manuscripts written by those visitors as they emulate each other’s writings. Sigmund Freud also appears in some scenes of rural Indiana and eventually adapts to “The Hoosier Style.”

L. Arzell is the pen name of a published author from Indiana. He has published two history books and two children books. He studied engineering, soil sciences, social psychology and American Humor at Purdue University. His hobbies are reading great fiction, writing offbeat humor and observing Hoosiers in their natural habitat.