Jay Demerath

Flea Market Jesus

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Had anyone else told me he was going to write an account of American individualism as it is concocted, practiced, and sometimes sold in a Midwest flea market that hosts buckskin-clad muzzle-gun shooters and tomahawk throwing on the side, I would have patted them on the back and beat a quick retreat. But not Art Farnsley. This has long been a part of his world. And the result is one of the most personally engaging and intellectually compelling accounts of individualism since Thoreau. Farnsley dips into his own marginality to play interlocutor to the conflicts between anti-individualistic institutionalism and anti-conformist individuality. After being introduced to a beguiling range of his lifelong flea market friends and their composite, Cochise, the book slips up on you like a few cold beers on a hot summer afternoon.”