The Big, Untameable Ideas of Bigfoot
I’ve lost track of the times people have made fun of me for believing in Bigfoot. It’s a bit of mystery, a bit of childhood, along with some danger tossed in, combined with vague memories of the drive-in, and a love of the theme song from the seventies television show In Search Of. I’m a tad more skeptical of the Loch Ness Monster, but I still just choose to believe in the creatures, logic be damned.
Most would say I’m fairly educated on the subject as I know who expert Jeff Meldrum is and I’ve always wanted to write a story about hoaxer Ray Wallace. I know enough to avoid the glut of Animal Planet and Discovery Channel shows, simply because they’re too easy. “Wait! I heard something over there!”
So, I was excited to see the publication of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster by John O’Connor. I assumed it would be detailed, literate, and thoughtful, in all the ways that the filmed-in-the-dark-and-we-know-reality-shows-aren’t-real-but-they-want-us-to-believe-they-heard-a-shriek shows are not.
The book lived up to my expectations in that it is, indeed, detailed, literate, and thoughtful. But it’s just too damn much.
Too many references.
Too many allusions.
Too many quotes.
Too many ideas.
O’Connor is clearly intelligent, well-read, and sincere in his love of nature. He undeniably has a tremendous amount of knowledge to draw upon in this examination of Sasquatch. And, he can clearly write well. The scenes where he focuses on a group of Bigfoot hunters tramping through the woods and telling tales are amusing and enjoyable. His description of nature is moving, when he’s not cramming in an encyclopedia’s information.
Chapter Seven, entitled “The Center of the World,” should be a standout as it delves into the grainy 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film that is the most recognizable depiction of Bigfoot in popular culture. It’s on par with the Surgeon’s Photo of the Loch Ness Monster that was published in 1934. Mention Bigfoot to almost anyone in America, and they’ll picture the striding creature looking over its shoulder at the startled filmmakers. They may not know the names of Patterson and Gimlin, but they know the film.
Patterson-Gimlin is one of my favorite aspects of the Bigfoot legend. Take a moment to look at a still from the 954-frame footage and you’ll see a space cleared by a recent flood. Sticks, logs, rocks, and natural detritus are countless.
Unfortunately, O’Connor crams about as many references into the seventy-page chapter.
After an epigraph from Edward Abbey, the chapter begins with a Dave Eggers description of the California sky. Sergio Leone is invoked fourteen sentences later. A second Italian filmmaker, Sergio Corbucci, comes in the next sentence. Then a William Carlos Williams turn of phrase finishes the paragraph.
A block quote from biologist and writer Ivan Sanderson occupies a quarter of a page. Travel writer Horace Kephart is quoted. A Bigfooter is described as looking like television actor Timothy Olyphant, the second time O’Connor used an actor for a subject description, after repeatedly calling a Bigfoot hunter in Kentucky “Jon Bernthal” in an earlier chapter.
Fear of Flying author Erica Jong is quoted on the subject of fame. Martin Luther King, Jr. makes an appearance. Sociologist Todd Gitlin is quoted, Pete Hamill is quoted, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski is quoted, and Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton are quoted at length from their work Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. COVID-19, suicide and liver disease appear, followed by 737 MAX jets. Economic researcher Valerie Wilson is cited, followed up by references to Purdue Pharma, OxyContin, and Donald Trump.
There’s an Alice in Wonderland reference, three-and-a-half pages of Thomas Merton discussion (complete with Steve McQueen and Marcus Aurelius references) that merges into about two pages of explication of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. The discussion of the Scandinavian writer’s massive project is broken up by a Back to the Future reference of Doc Brown, Marty McFly, the DeLorean, and lightning bolts that encompasses not just the original flick but the sequel as well. Then it’s on to a quote about the passage of time from philosopher Jim Holt.
Saint Paul and Saint Cuthbert are discussed, which flows into W.H. Auden and writer William Giraldi.
A brief allusion to Camus and then we’re back at Merton which yields Nebuchadnezzar II, before a quote from Puritan minister Michael Wigglesworth which leads into a quote from Michigan politician Lewis Cass, which then goes into a Werner Herzog quote. Alexis de Tocqueville is featured in the same paragraph as those two, as is French American writer J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur and DH Lawrence.
Back to Merton, which begets Philip Larkin which begets Paul Muldoon. The Dalai Lama, Darwin, Milton, Shelley, and Shakespeare make appearances, rounded out by a quote from Thomas Bernhard.
The chapter mercifully ends with a reference to psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett.
In this seventy-page chapter, there are:
–Thirty-seven references to non-Bigfoot related sources or experts or pop culture aspects
–Eight magazines named
–Forty-two place names identified
–Fourteen brands mentioned
Catholicism, Sufism, Buddhism, and even the lost continent of Lemuria are all mentioned.
Even descriptions involve name dropping, as the sky is “Eggerdian” and O’Connor’s wife has a “Pavolvian” reaction and a Bigfooter has a “near Calvinist work ethic” and time is “Einsteinian” and retrenchment is “Nixonian” and the ground is “Sissyphean.” Oh, and a battle is “Manichean.”
Remember, this isn’t accounting for the actual Bigfoot-related experts and source materials quoted in the chapter. That stuff is actually useful and relevant.
The trouble is that O’Connor’s Patrick Bateman style of stat stuffing obscures his very interesting parallels between belief in cryptozoology and Q-Anon-style beliefs of our current political discourse. Chapter One, entitled “Shadow Country” has a fascinating examination of pseudoscience and the mental gymnastics we put ourselves through to support the things we do.
There is an old writing program cliché about “writing the book you want to read.” Clearly, O’Connor has written the book the wants to read, and the one he wanted to write. Over at Slate, Laura Miller states that O’Connor has to “settle for using his outdoorsy getaways as a tax write-off – the Arkansas chapter in particular being a flagrant example. O’Connor rents a kayak to paddle around the Bayou De View, not because Bigfoots have been sighted there, but because the officially extinct ivory-billed woodpecker allegedly has.”
The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on an American Monster by John O’Connor is very literate and very thoughtful. It’s an intelligent contribution to the body of knowledge about the creature. But if the book’s contributions were lesser in number, they would be greater in impact.