A Fever in the Heartland is the third book I’ve read by Timothy Egan. In The Immortal Irishman, he told the fascinating story of Thomas Meager, an Irish revolutionary turned general in the American Civil War. In Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, he told the equally fascinating story of Edward Curtis, a photographer who spent decades compiling a pictorial record of the continent’s indigenous peoples. His latest work is very different, and though it is an important and sadly relevant story, “fascinating” is probably not a word that would immediately come to mind when describing it.
“Fever” is an account of the life of D.C. Stephenson, who rose seemingly from nowhere to become the leader of the KKK in the Northern states, and perhaps the most powerful person in the state of Indiana. With Congressmen and even the Governor in his pockets, by 1924 Stephenson was turning his sights on higher office himself, convinced that nothing and no one could stop him.
The subtitle already tells you it was a woman who stopped him from realizing those frightening ambitions. Her name was Madge Oberholzer, and it’s clear that Egan wants this to be as much her story as his. Madge was a young woman, a former schoolteacher working in a government job centered involving teaching young people to read. When rumored budget cuts threatened her department, Madge turned to Stephenson for help, only to find out that he extracted a high price for favors. Eventually, Stephenson’s heinous treatment of Madge is what leads to his downfall.
Though this is obviously a story worthy of new attention, Egan struggles, in my opinion, to properly balance it within the larger story of the time. Stephenson’s rise is mirrored by the terrifying rise of the Klan in the 1920s. Egan, who is an excellent researcher, provides tons of horrifying details about the popularity and influence of the hate group, both in Indiana and the country as a whole, but telling the full story of the Klan would take many more pages than are in this relatively brief volume. The inundation of facts, many of which are not necessarily relevant to the Stephenson trial story, threatens to make it look like Egan lacked confidence in his chosen topic’s ability to carry a whole book.
The book is strongest when focusing on the strength of the Indiana Klan. The second iteration of the society, revived some fifty years after the post-Civil War version was stamped out, was staggeringly successful in the Hoosier state. Whole towns were under the Klan’s control, mayors, judges, cops and all. Stephenson himself turned an arcane relic of an auxiliary police force called the Horse Thieves Detectives Association into a de facto law enforcement arm of the KKK. At extravagant parties at his mansion or on his yacht, Stephenson hosted the rich and powerful and made them do his bidding. The Klan was a forceful presence at the national conventions of both political parties during the 1924 campaign, and they cowed “Silent Cal” Coolidge out of supporting anti-lynching legislation.
This version of the Klan was largely undone by Stephenson’s downfall, in concert with a few other, similar events. In time, the more public-facing the Klan became, the more people were able to see and be disgusted by their true nature. Though Egan is too smart and subtle to celebrate the Klan’s losses without noting that the virulent strain of racism in America didn’t go anywhere.
Due to the tragic, dispiriting nature of its story, A Fever in the Heartland lacks some of the verve and style that made Egan’s other books so thrilling to read, but it’s insight and continuing relevance make it a worthwhile read on its own merits.
