Non-Fiction for People Who Enjoy Horror

"Mrs. Wakeman Vs. The Antichrist" is a collection of articles about strange happenings in the United States. The articles will appeal mostly to people interested in stories of the occult or pseudoscience. I think the best classification for this book might be "non-fiction horror."

The book has an excellent index, an element missing from most popular non-fiction. The author has done a great amount of research and found plenty of sources for the historical facts he presents, but his footnotes are lacking. Some of the footnotes are just URLs, including one footnote that is simply a URL to a Wikipedia page. I'm not kidding. Other footnotes simply give names and dates of articles, but no other information.

Unfortunately, the author is also speculative to a fault. This will appeal to a lot of readers who enjoy popular mysteries, but I found it was a stretch for me. For example, the author writes an entire article presenting logic to mysteries, but then claims there might be an unknown, supernatural reason for the occurrences. Because most people are scientifically skeptical about Ouija, there doesn't seem to be much of a point to ending the article by speculating that a Ouija board might be the cause behind mass hysteria.

There are digressions for pages at a time. In the article that is ostensibly about a doctor who surgically altered men to be in a "freak" show attraction, the author goes off on tangents about other traveling circuses and "freak" shows. Most of the articles have similar detours and asides. At times throughout the book, this caused me to lose track of the people and timelines.

Anyone who likes the occult, horror stories, or pseudoscience will enjoy these stories. Just because it wasn't my cup of tea doesn't mean that there isn't an audience for these articles. ( )

This book contained some fascinating facts and stories that I enjoyed learning about and exploring. I've never heard the in-depth history of freak shows and offshoot religious cults that the author presents. The author does a great job in using a ton of facts and firsthand accounts to present his material. It’s evident that the author took his time in his research to find some incredibly rare and interesting stories. There is an abundance of footnotes and a good index that I find a great feature in a collection of non-fictional material.

I only wish that the facts might have been incorporated in the narrative a bit better. There were times that the reading was a bit dry even though the material was anything but. This book also screams out for an introduction, something to introduce the reader to the material and present some pointers in a concise manner before the reader delves into the evidence. I was thrown into the facts and names by page 4 or 5, pretty much right off the bat. I found my stride fairly quickly, but an introduction would have smoothed the process.

This was an enjoyable exploration of the odder side of American history. Religious cults, stigmata cases, and horned men definitely don’t make it into mainstream history texts so that is a nice addition to any non-fiction shelf. I’d definitely recommend it just for the oddity and rarity of its content. However, there are some issues that I believe detract from the enjoyment factor of the book. Filtering the dry facts with more “meat” and an introduction would add more to this novel and bring the rating up. But it’s still definitely an entertaining read.

Note: Book received for free via Good Reads First Reads program in exchange for honest review. ( )