I am on again, off again, working on my own “History of the Skunkape project, so when I saw this book on Amazon Kindle for .99 I couldn’t resist. The Author,according to his twitter page is a journalist, “Agency Director” and podcast co host. The book is short, less than 30 pages on the kindle app. It is an easy read, and the author makes some very compelling arguments. Being self published and since the opening paragraphs are devoted to Dave Shealy, the owner of the much beloved tourist trap “Skunk ape research headquarters” I was initially very afraid that this book was going to end up being a David Shealy, Skunkape and conspiracy love fest. I was throughly surprised and happy that it was not. Rather, Desjarlais work was much more skeptical in nature.
For someone who is more well versed in Florida History, they may be somewhat frustrated at the way that Desjarlais glosses over some things, and seems to have a some grasp, but not a complete one of some more obscure florida history, but it is hard to tell with no citations (more on this later). This is a nit picky, Jake centric criticism, the broad strokes are there, and they are just fine.
The author also includes a brief rundown of Bigfoot lore from other parts of the country that help places things in perspective and clearly eschews the strangers aspects of cryptozoology by firmly placing his narrative in the Gigantopithicus/its an ape, camp of cryptozoology. The author then outlines some of the more colorful supposed sightings of the Skunkape, and focuses his efforts on south Florida and all things David Shealy, which falls nicely into one of the main thrusts of his argument, who profits from the stories?
My biggest complaint with this work, and one that is pretty consistent across many Cryptozoological works written by non academics is a lack of citations. Desjarlais has some really compelling nuggets of information and stories, but very rarely makes mention of any other authors and never offers anything close to formal citations or even a works cited or bibliography. Perhaps my training as a historian and reading of more formal cryptozoological writings has me spoiled, because Desjarlais is not alone in this category when it comes to citations in cryptozoological works.
Easily my favorite part of this book is the compelling and skeptical arguments that Desjarlais makes, I wont spill the beans here because you ought to spend the .99 to go ahead and read it for yourself if you are so inlined. All in all I found “ The Florida Skunkape: A Complete History” to be far from complete historically, but a sound and logical look at the subject nonetheless, if you find yourself with an interest in the subject, .99 cents to spare and about 30 minutes to kill while you are barbecuing on the back porch, you could hardly go wrong with this.
Desjarlais’ book can be purchased for kindle here-https://www.amazon.com/Florida-Skunk-Ape-Conspiracy-Chapbooks-ebook/dp/B08J87GMZL/ref=nodl_
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