About this item
Indiana University, September 1963. Meri Henriques, a naïve freshman from New York, arrives on campus thinking shes about to enroll at an idyllic Midwestern college. Instead, she discovers a storm is brewing. An intriguing cast of characters inhabits Meris new and often troubled world: Katherine "Pixie" Gates, Meris charming and quirky roommate; Rachel, brilliant and sarcastic fellow New Yorker; Daniel, a tough radical with a tender heart; folk singer Derek Stone, Meris crush; and Shennandoah Waters, a white coed who only dates black men or exotic foreigners, much to her ultra-conservative parents horror. Over the course of Meris first year at college, tragedy strikes twice: John Kennedy is assassinated, and a young, black IU basketball player is castrated and thrown into a ditch -- murdered for dating a white coed. And finally, that years commencement ceremonies bring an infamous symbol of white supremacy to campus, endangering anyone who dared to protest -- thrusting Meri into the middle of violent and escalating racial tensions. Vivid and compelling, Hoosier Hysteria is a timely story of prejudice and political unrest that, today more than ever before, must be told.
About the Author
After leaving Indiana University, Meri Henriques Vahl arrived at the University of California, Berkeley, just in time to witness the Free Speech Movement. Since earning her BA in Fine Art at Berkeley, she has worked as a graphic artist and musician, performed in several Gilbert & Sullivan operettas with the San Francisco Lamplighters, and is currently an award-winning art quilter who teaches at various venues in the USA and overseas. Vahl has two adult children and lives in central California with her husband and two rowdy felines. She also writes science fiction, and hopes to publish those stories in the near future (rather than the sci-fi future!)
