A Fever in the Heart Land by Timothy Egan

Hello beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review I get into A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan is a fantastically educational, and riveting biography and true crime novel that made my spine tingle. 

My Review

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan tells you a lot of what you need to know about the book in just the title. I am Canadian and while I definitely learned the surface-level information about the KKK, what they stood for, and the atrocities they committed on black people and communities, this book really taught me so many deeper details about the organization that I was never aware of. I’ll be honest I had no clue how the KKK was brought down and I felt like this book educated me on a lot of American history in this era. I am aware that there was of course chapters in Canada but our history with it wasn’t as extensive or deadly to my understanding. Our country just preserved all that anger and aggression for the Indigenous communities.

I gave A Fever in the Heart Land by Timothy Egan an 8.5/10 rating overall. I would be really interested to hear what people from other areas thought of the book. I felt like if a lot of this was maybe old information to me it may not have been as enjoyable so I am curious to hear how others who did found it. I personally really enjoyed how the story was laid out and while I feel like it wasn’t purposeful it’s just the history – the book was a page-turner and while I was extremely aware this was true it was like a disaster you can’t stop looking at. If you don’t know the history of how the KKK was brought down from their horrifying rule over the American people you’ve got to check this out. It’s terribly heartbreaking, but I also have to admit, very outlandish for the time. As the title ensues the KKK’s plot to rule America is taken down by a person, but not just any person a woman. I won’t lie how she takes them down could give anyone nightmares, but I also feel like Madge Oberholtzer, the people who went to battle for her and loved her, deserve to have their history told.

I appreciated that the book started off with some background history into the KKK, how they came to be so powerful, and the role that D.C Stevenson held in the organization. It’s also so incredibly interesting to learn how the KKK destroyed itself just as easily as it was started. I wish there was some kind of human study done on why so many people found no issue with the KKK’s actions. Racism aside how can you be fine with people killing other people in this way, burning down their homes, destroying families? It just doesn’t make sense to me how so many people found this humane not even 100 years ago. It’s a boggling story but I am glad to have a stronger understanding of the history because it’s just absolutely insane.

The one personal downfall for me in the book was I wished that a bit more was spoken on Madge, and who she was. I felt like we got plenty of surface-level things about her but not the deepness that some of the other people who show up in the book got. I can also acknowledge though that the information may not be there. I mean at the point of writing this book I am doubting that anyone who knew her would be alive or would really remember much at this point but I don’t know I just felt like it was missing something in regards to her. It may honestly just be what happened to her in terms of how she would bring down the KKK was just so horrifying that I just wanted to know more nice things about her. Given the time frame that all of this happened in the 1920s, it’s not much of a surprise that not much would have been reported on her that wasn’t surface-level or slanderous. I mean that at this point the KKK was ruling all major organizations so the ability to try and present the truth about the type of person she really is would have been hard until the day in court.

I was really drawn into the book by the factor of how each page shows progression in how the USA almost came to being a strictly KKK-run Country. It was interesting to me because I was drawn into the focus of the crowd mentality, manipulation, and fear-mongering that was produced to make this happen. It’s interesting as well because I was kind of unaware of the history behind the influence that the KKK had on Hitler’s rule… the man was inspired by America, it’s just nauseating. I had definitely thought through the book how reminiscent the KKK’s history is to what eventually played out in WW2. A hard part of the book was the focus on how hard people fought to change what was going on in America at that time, whether it was the Civil War, the division of blacks and whites, the end of slavery, and how the clock sadly today is winding back rather than going forward. The control that the government felt it should have on the people at that time is extremely reminiscent of what’s going on in North America today and how the government has essentially said screw the division of church and state, screw autonomy for citizens, let’s get all handmaids tale up in the bitch.

Overall A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Lux Lan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan is a must-read and one that’s hard to put down. It felt like reading a well-written captivating textbook. If you do or don’t know the history behind the gathering and disbandment of the KKK and their attempt to overtake the American government (although let’s be real there are for sure chapters still alive to this day) I would really recommend checking this one out. If you enjoy history-based biographies and true crime books this would definitely be one to pick up.   

Have you read A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Over Take America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan before? What did you think?

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