AKRON, Ohio — Ohio has monsters — Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Grassman, the Melon Heads of Kirtland and Lake Erie Bessie — and in John Scalzi’s new novel “Monsters of Ohio,” the monsters are your neighbors, the Akron Beacon Journal wrote in its Nov. 1 Book Talk column. The gleefully grotesque science fiction-horror novel is set in fictional Richland, near Scalzi’s real-life hometown of Bradford in Darke County.
The hero, as the Beacon Journal summarized the book, is Mike Boyd, a former resident who played bass in a onetime minor rock band and more recently wrote press releases for the Department of Agriculture. He returns to Richland after, in the column’s phrase, “this administration happened” to him, and moves in with his estranged father and a stepmother who does nothing but complain.
Mike goes for a jog and notices posters for missing pets — many more than seem consistent with the town’s population, the Beacon Journal wrote. His old friend Dave, now the town cop, is called to a farm where a cow seems to have exploded. Then people start exploding too — and, after the initial surprise, they do not seem too upset about it. Somehow they are better people: nicer, though only sort-of people now, with sort-of faces, much like the cow is a sort-of cow, with tentacles.
One character’s reaction, quoted by the Beacon Journal from the novel, captures the book’s tone: “I exploded, didn’t I? So that’s probably not good. But I feel fine.” The column called the book “terrifically funny, with the humor as pervasive as the gore,” while still conveying a statement about who the real monsters are — citing corporate greed, political corruption and intolerance.
The town’s lackluster annual Soybean Festival is being replaced with a Monster Mash celebrating Ohio’s cryptids, the Beacon Journal wrote — a contrivance to distract locals from thinking about the expected closing of the town’s largest employer, a food processing plant. The locals soon find other things to distract them.
Scalzi brings serious credentials to the silliness. His novel “Redshirts” won the 2013 Hugo Award, and “When the Moon Hits Your Eye” is nominated for the 2027 Thurber Prize for American Humor, according to the Beacon Journal. “Monsters of Ohio” runs 272 pages in hardcover and costs $29.99 from Tor Books.
Northeast Ohio readers can hear him in person this week: Scalzi will discuss and sign “Monsters of Ohio” at 2 p.m. Nov. 7 at Hudson Library & Historical Society, 96 Library St. in Hudson, the Beacon Journal reported. Registration is through hudsonlibrary.org.
The signing lands in the middle of one of the region’s biggest book weeks of the year. The 39th Buckeye Book Fair brings more than 100 authors — including Thrity Umrigar, Jeanine Cummins, Linda Castillo, Amanda Flower, Mindy McGinnis and Mark Dawidziak — to the Greystone Event Center, 50 Riffel Road in Wooster, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 7, according to the Beacon Journal’s events list. A Buckeye Book Crawl leads up to the fair in Wooster Nov. 2 through Nov. 5.
Cleveland-area readers have a full slate the same week, the Beacon Journal reported: Susan Orlean discusses her memoir “Joyride” at Shaker Library on Nov. 2; Jennifer Boresz Engelking discusses “Hidden History of Lake Erie” at Cuyahoga County Public Library’s Chagrin Falls branch the same evening; and Visible Voice Books in Cleveland hosts a Nov. 4 talk on “Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health” and a Nov. 5 signing by podcaster Andy J. Pizza.
The timing pairs neatly with the season Ohioans just finished: our own Halloween coverage rounded up Ohio’s scariest haunted attractions, and Northeast Ohio’s fall calendar has also brought community investment news, from Akron Children’s new Cleveland pediatric practice to Bridgestone’s Akron training center.
The cryptids Scalzi plays with are genuine Ohio folklore. The Grassman is the state’s Bigfoot-like figure, most associated with the woods of eastern Ohio and Cuyahoga Valley National Park; the Melon Heads are said to haunt the Kirtland area of Lake County; and Bessie is Lake Erie’s long-reported lake monster. A novel that treats those legends as neighbors rather than threats is working with material Ohio readers already half-believe at a campfire.
What happens next: “Monsters of Ohio” is on sale now, and Scalzi’s Hudson appearance at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 is the local stop Northeast Ohio readers will want to register for early — the same afternoon as the Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster, making Nov. 7 a genuine choose-your-own-adventure day for Ohio book lovers.
Photo: Erik Drost, CC BY