Book Review: The United States of Cryptids by J. W. Ocker
Ocker explores the cultural impact of folklore, whether true or false.
The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J. W. Ocker. Narrated by Mark Sanderlin. Blackstone Publishing, 2022. 7 hours (approx.).
J. W. Ocker is “the award-winning author of macabre travelogues, spooky kid’s books, and horror novels.” His latest book is The United States of Cryptids. It is a travel guide to America’s hottest destinations for festivals, monuments, pizzerias and other activities centered around cryptid sightings and legends.
A cryptid is defined by Marriam-Webster.com as, “An animal that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist.” Popular examples include Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Too often cryptid sightings and legends - or media about cryptids like Monster Quest - are variations on these two, that is, either a large land mammal or a sea snake. Fortunately, Ocker has quite the variety, which keeps his book from becoming repetitive and boring.
And not just varied but also unique. The Wampahoofus is a creature that, according to Ocker’s report of the legend, has shorter legs on one side and longer ones on the other. He writes:
On flat land those uneven legs make the beast like a bicycle without a kickstand - unable to hold itself upright. However, the asymmetry is uniquely adapted to the steep hills and mountains that are its natural terrain.
Of course, this means a Wampahoofus can only travel in one direction, either clockwise or counterclockwise around the mountain. One legend suggests males and females have opposing short sides and travel in opposing directions. They meet occasionally to mate.
For the macabre traveler there is a hiking trail on Mount Mansfield near Underhill, Vermont named for this creature.
The variety of cryptids appearing here is helped by a deliberate and arbitrary expansion of the definition of a cryptid. In the introduction Ocker reports, “... cryptid has become synonymous with monsters of any kind.” Monsters like aliens and (“perhaps”) robots. He continues, “... we want to collect all the monster stories, and we want the widest variety of them in our collection as possible.”
Maybe alien stories aren’t cryptid stories, but The United States of Cryptids is better for including them. The close encounter Don Wood, Jr. and friends had with a “giant sky clam” is hair-raising. Ocker writes:
It was round and flat, like a saucer about 8 feet across. It had a shell-like carapace that Wood compared to mica. The top was wet looking, the bottom reddish. They approached it, immediately recognizing this strange object as a living organic thing … The top half of the shell rose and fell like it was breathing …
At its core, the book is about the cultural heritage of these stories. Small towns all across America identify with and celebrate their local cryptids. Take for example Point Pleasant, West Virginia, home of the Mothman. In the middle of that town there is a Mothman statue. Nearby is the Mothman museum that holds, among other things, props from the 2002 Richard Gere movie based on the legend. Every September the town celebrates a Mothman festival that attracts 10,000 people, according to Ocker.
But are the stories true? Well, yes. Sort of. The legends are true, and the festivals like that in Point Pleasant are true. The nights we spend around the campfire scaring each other with tales of monsters are true. Or, as Ocker poignantly writes:
You may disbelieve that a lizard man attacked a car in a South Carolina swamp in the summer of 1988, but the lizard man mania is irrefutably documented. In other words, the story is true regardless of whether the lizard man itself is real.