BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – What happens when libertarians take over a small New Hampshire town, eliminating virtually all local government just as the local bear population is exploding? What happens when the American medical system is supplanted by people who believe zombies are real? What happens when paranormal investigators attempt to harness the scientific method to prove the existence of ghosts?
Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling is fascinated by such questions, and his three contemporary nonfiction books, “A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear,” “If It Sounds Like a Quack,” and “The Ghost Lab,” delve deep into the results. His writing is at once very funny, extremely thought-provoking, and deeply unsettling.
Hongoltz-Hetling will be appearing at the Rockingham Free Public Library on Friday, Dec. 12, at 7 p.m., reading from and discussing his work. The host is Bellows Falls artist and event presenter Charlie Hunter. The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available from Village Square Booksellers at the event.
Hongoltz-Hetling got his start as a reporter at Valley News, the daily newspaper serving the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. His beat included Grafton, N.H., and he covered the events that became “A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear”
Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, N.H., a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank – the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse, etc. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town’s thick wilderness.
The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton’s neighbors, the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity.
“A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear” is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment – to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.
For more information about this and other programs, call 802-463-4270, visit www.rockinghamlibrary.org, or stop by the library at 65 Westminster Street, Bellows Falls, VT 05101.