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Population: 485
Here the local vigilante is a farmer's wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Michael Perry loves this place. He grew up here, and now -- after a decade away -- he has returned. Unable to polka or repair his own pickup, his farm-boy hands gone soft after years of writing, Mike figures the best way to regain his credibility is to join the volunteer fire department. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, he tells a frequently comic tale leavened with moments of heartbreaking delicacy and searing tragedy.
234 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2002
271 people are currently reading
3787 people want to read
About the author
Michael Perry
25 books607 followersMichael Perry is a New York Times bestselling author, humorist and radio show host from New Auburn, Wisconsin.
Perry’s bestselling memoirs include Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, Coop, and Visiting Tom. Raised on a small Midwestern dairy farm, Perry put himself through nursing school while working on a ranch in Wyoming, then wound up writing by happy accident. He lives with his wife and two daughters in rural Wisconsin, where he serves on the local volunteer fire and rescue service and is an amateur pig farmer. He hosts the nationally-syndicated “Tent Show Radio,” performs widely as a humorist, and tours with his band the Long Beds (currently recording their third album for Amble Down Records). He has recorded three live humor albums including Never Stand Behind A Sneezing Cow and The Clodhopper Monologues, is currently finishing his first young adult novel, and can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com.
Perry’s essays and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Backpacker, Outside, Runner’s World, Salon.com, and he is a contributing editor to Men’s Health magazine. His writing assignments have taken him to the top of Mt. Rainier with Iraq War veterans, into the same room as the frozen head of Ted Williams, across the United States with truckers and country music singers, and—once—buck naked into a spray-tan booth.
In the essay collection Off Main Street, Perry wrote of how his nursing education prepared him to become a writer by training him in human assessment, and he credits singer-songwriters like Steve Earle and John Prine with helping him understand that art need not wear fancy clothes. Above all, he gives credit to his parents, of whom he says, “Anything good is because of them, everything else is simply not their fault.” His mother taught him to read and filled the house with books; his father taught him how to clean calf pens, of which Perry has written, “a childhood spent slinging manure – the metaphorical basis for a writing career.”
Perry has recently been involved in several musical collaborations, including as lyricist for Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer, and as co-writer (with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon) of the liner notes for the John Prine tribute album “Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows.” Perry also collaborated with Vernon and Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne on a project that began when Vernon approached Perry and said, “Say, you’re a nurse…” The results were bloody, but then that was the point.
Of all his experiences, Perry says the single most meaningful thing he has ever done is serving 12 years beside his neighbors on the New Auburn Area Fire Department.
Mike says:
If I had to sum up my ‘career’ in one word, it would be gratitude. I get to write and tell stories all around the country, then come home to be with my family and hang out at the local feed mill complaining about the price of feeder hogs. It’s a good life and I’m lucky to have it.
Perry’s bestselling memoirs include Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, Coop, and Visiting Tom. Raised on a small Midwestern dairy farm, Perry put himself through nursing school while working on a ranch in Wyoming, then wound up writing by happy accident. He lives with his wife and two daughters in rural Wisconsin, where he serves on the local volunteer fire and rescue service and is an amateur pig farmer. He hosts the nationally-syndicated “Tent Show Radio,” performs widely as a humorist, and tours with his band the Long Beds (currently recording their third album for Amble Down Records). He has recorded three live humor albums including Never Stand Behind A Sneezing Cow and The Clodhopper Monologues, is currently finishing his first young adult novel, and can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com.
Perry’s essays and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Backpacker, Outside, Runner’s World, Salon.com, and he is a contributing editor to Men’s Health magazine. His writing assignments have taken him to the top of Mt. Rainier with Iraq War veterans, into the same room as the frozen head of Ted Williams, across the United States with truckers and country music singers, and—once—buck naked into a spray-tan booth.
In the essay collection Off Main Street, Perry wrote of how his nursing education prepared him to become a writer by training him in human assessment, and he credits singer-songwriters like Steve Earle and John Prine with helping him understand that art need not wear fancy clothes. Above all, he gives credit to his parents, of whom he says, “Anything good is because of them, everything else is simply not their fault.” His mother taught him to read and filled the house with books; his father taught him how to clean calf pens, of which Perry has written, “a childhood spent slinging manure – the metaphorical basis for a writing career.”
Perry has recently been involved in several musical collaborations, including as lyricist for Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer, and as co-writer (with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon) of the liner notes for the John Prine tribute album “Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows.” Perry also collaborated with Vernon and Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne on a project that began when Vernon approached Perry and said, “Say, you’re a nurse…” The results were bloody, but then that was the point.
Of all his experiences, Perry says the single most meaningful thing he has ever done is serving 12 years beside his neighbors on the New Auburn Area Fire Department.
Mike says:
If I had to sum up my ‘career’ in one word, it would be gratitude. I get to write and tell stories all around the country, then come home to be with my family and hang out at the local feed mill complaining about the price of feeder hogs. It’s a good life and I’m lucky to have it.
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April 28, 2013
WARNING: Possibly ill-advised, slightly intoxicated soap-boxing lies ahead. Proceed at your own risk.
The title of this book is slightly misleading in that it implies Michael Perry will introduce the reader to a rich, quirky swath of characters who inhabit a very small town. While there are a few folks who shine through, such as Beagle the cock-eyed firefighter, [i]Population: 485[/i] is mostly a detailed account of what goes into being a volunteer firefighter. For that, I appreciated it as this is a subset of the American populace I have given little thought to and I enjoy learning about trades/hobbies/subsets that I would otherwise never learn about.
Mostly, Perry just describes different calls he has gone on: Cutting a woman from the wreckage of her car; pursuing a drunken man from another car wreck through the snowy Wisconsin woods until the police (the people paid to deal with such things) showed up; resuscitating a dairy farmer who had collapsed in his barn and setting up a piece of plywood to blockade the cow shit and piss raining on him from every direction. These are pretty good stories and I enjoyed reading them for the most part, though somehow this book failed to entirely rivet me. It's well written enough; Perry can certainly weave a sentence (though one can feel him straining for the kind of deep thoughts that breed philosophical immortality), and his first-aid action sequences can be quite suspenseful. And yet, his manly-literary cultivation didn't jibe for me with his parallel self-assessment as a small-town rube at heart. It's not that I want him to look, talk and sound like a hick... I guess I just expect someone as well read as Perry, and as deeply insightful as he struggles to be, to be a little more critical of the world around them. I have been to small towns such as the one depicted in this book. I dated a lovely girl from much less lovely Prineville, Oregon, and spent countless hours in that town, with her family and friends. While I saw plenty of the good ol' down-home kindness, trust, and friendliness that drips off every page of [i]Population: 485[/i], I also saw plenty of poverty-line alcoholism, emotional and physical violence, and the kind of ignorant, deluded, traditionalist conservatism that gets people like Bush into office and gives people like McCain and Sara Palin a viable, terrifying chance. I saw this everywhere I went in that small town, and in other small towns like it, and I am pretty sure if it is like that in Oregon small towns it's almost certainly like that in Wisconsin small towns. I don't consider myself a bleeding heart liberal; I like to think I am tolerant and open to all points of view. As I said, I've experienced great kindness and generosity in small towns, but time after time I've also experienced a kind of self-destruction. A bull-headed demographic that often hurts itself with its personal and political choices, then puts up stubborn resistance to anything different.
Now, this may be a bad time for me to write this... I'm slightly drunk and terrified of the huge impact Sara Palin is having on our country, the love her lies and vitriol and spite is pulling forth from the very people and towns Perry is writing about. I'm sick and tired of misinformed, uneducated folks buying this garbage and I want to cry at the thought of another four years of an administration that cares nothing for the very people who happily, thoughtlessly elect it into office because it looks pretty and gleefully offers no change whatsoever and subsequently no challenge to our "cherished" American values.
Because of the mood I'm in, Perry's book didn't feel like a loving ode to the quaintness of small-town livin' but an inflated, incurious glossing of the facade of a dark underbelly. I admire Perry's selfless choice to be a first-response emergency technician who doesn't even get paid for what he does, but I also can't believe that when he says he goes out on over a hundred calls a year, that he does not face the true blights under the surface of Americana every week. My questions are, why has the dairy farmer collapsed in his barn from heart failure? Why did the woman have to be pried from her car that was cut open like a tin can? The cynical part of me says the answers are because he ate nothing but meat and potatoes every day of his life and probably smoked a pack a day as well, and because she was drunk as fuck, or run off the road by someone else who was drunk as fuck. Of course, such problems plague even the most cosmopolitan walks of life, but the thing is, the cosmopolitans have no shortage of informed, articulate critics to keep us in check. Perry propagates himself shamelessly as a well-read, literate observer of the human race and its issues, and thus should be the best equipped to analyze both the highs and the lows of the place he allegedly loves. Instead, he is content to describe yet another situation that involved administering CPR or ramming a tube down some poor rube's throat, then gets back to his good ol' boy roots fishin' for carp or huntin' some deer. If I wasn't currently blaming places like New Auburn, the town Perry calls home, for instilling fear and shame in me of this country, I might let this slide. But I am, and so I want more from an intellect who has contributed to both NPR and the New Yorker. Maybe it's silly to project my animosity on a book about firefighting that was published in 2002, but the Bush administration was already in full swing by then, and Perry was and is embedded in the thick of the world that made it happen. That he not only fails to acknowledge that fact but seems entirely unaware of it, makes me view his relentless rural poeticizing as the literary equivalent of lipstick on a pig. Indeed, the entire ruse of the wholesomeness of small-town America is the greatest lip-sticked pig of them all, the very poison at the heart of our country's most fundamental problems. And any alleged "literature" written in this century by allegedly intelligent people that refuses to acknowledge that truth shall never be embraced by my heart, no matter how easy to read it is.
The title of this book is slightly misleading in that it implies Michael Perry will introduce the reader to a rich, quirky swath of characters who inhabit a very small town. While there are a few folks who shine through, such as Beagle the cock-eyed firefighter, [i]Population: 485[/i] is mostly a detailed account of what goes into being a volunteer firefighter. For that, I appreciated it as this is a subset of the American populace I have given little thought to and I enjoy learning about trades/hobbies/subsets that I would otherwise never learn about.
Mostly, Perry just describes different calls he has gone on: Cutting a woman from the wreckage of her car; pursuing a drunken man from another car wreck through the snowy Wisconsin woods until the police (the people paid to deal with such things) showed up; resuscitating a dairy farmer who had collapsed in his barn and setting up a piece of plywood to blockade the cow shit and piss raining on him from every direction. These are pretty good stories and I enjoyed reading them for the most part, though somehow this book failed to entirely rivet me. It's well written enough; Perry can certainly weave a sentence (though one can feel him straining for the kind of deep thoughts that breed philosophical immortality), and his first-aid action sequences can be quite suspenseful. And yet, his manly-literary cultivation didn't jibe for me with his parallel self-assessment as a small-town rube at heart. It's not that I want him to look, talk and sound like a hick... I guess I just expect someone as well read as Perry, and as deeply insightful as he struggles to be, to be a little more critical of the world around them. I have been to small towns such as the one depicted in this book. I dated a lovely girl from much less lovely Prineville, Oregon, and spent countless hours in that town, with her family and friends. While I saw plenty of the good ol' down-home kindness, trust, and friendliness that drips off every page of [i]Population: 485[/i], I also saw plenty of poverty-line alcoholism, emotional and physical violence, and the kind of ignorant, deluded, traditionalist conservatism that gets people like Bush into office and gives people like McCain and Sara Palin a viable, terrifying chance. I saw this everywhere I went in that small town, and in other small towns like it, and I am pretty sure if it is like that in Oregon small towns it's almost certainly like that in Wisconsin small towns. I don't consider myself a bleeding heart liberal; I like to think I am tolerant and open to all points of view. As I said, I've experienced great kindness and generosity in small towns, but time after time I've also experienced a kind of self-destruction. A bull-headed demographic that often hurts itself with its personal and political choices, then puts up stubborn resistance to anything different.
Now, this may be a bad time for me to write this... I'm slightly drunk and terrified of the huge impact Sara Palin is having on our country, the love her lies and vitriol and spite is pulling forth from the very people and towns Perry is writing about. I'm sick and tired of misinformed, uneducated folks buying this garbage and I want to cry at the thought of another four years of an administration that cares nothing for the very people who happily, thoughtlessly elect it into office because it looks pretty and gleefully offers no change whatsoever and subsequently no challenge to our "cherished" American values.
Because of the mood I'm in, Perry's book didn't feel like a loving ode to the quaintness of small-town livin' but an inflated, incurious glossing of the facade of a dark underbelly. I admire Perry's selfless choice to be a first-response emergency technician who doesn't even get paid for what he does, but I also can't believe that when he says he goes out on over a hundred calls a year, that he does not face the true blights under the surface of Americana every week. My questions are, why has the dairy farmer collapsed in his barn from heart failure? Why did the woman have to be pried from her car that was cut open like a tin can? The cynical part of me says the answers are because he ate nothing but meat and potatoes every day of his life and probably smoked a pack a day as well, and because she was drunk as fuck, or run off the road by someone else who was drunk as fuck. Of course, such problems plague even the most cosmopolitan walks of life, but the thing is, the cosmopolitans have no shortage of informed, articulate critics to keep us in check. Perry propagates himself shamelessly as a well-read, literate observer of the human race and its issues, and thus should be the best equipped to analyze both the highs and the lows of the place he allegedly loves. Instead, he is content to describe yet another situation that involved administering CPR or ramming a tube down some poor rube's throat, then gets back to his good ol' boy roots fishin' for carp or huntin' some deer. If I wasn't currently blaming places like New Auburn, the town Perry calls home, for instilling fear and shame in me of this country, I might let this slide. But I am, and so I want more from an intellect who has contributed to both NPR and the New Yorker. Maybe it's silly to project my animosity on a book about firefighting that was published in 2002, but the Bush administration was already in full swing by then, and Perry was and is embedded in the thick of the world that made it happen. That he not only fails to acknowledge that fact but seems entirely unaware of it, makes me view his relentless rural poeticizing as the literary equivalent of lipstick on a pig. Indeed, the entire ruse of the wholesomeness of small-town America is the greatest lip-sticked pig of them all, the very poison at the heart of our country's most fundamental problems. And any alleged "literature" written in this century by allegedly intelligent people that refuses to acknowledge that truth shall never be embraced by my heart, no matter how easy to read it is.
July 15, 2008
Oh my goodness. I have found my new favorite writer. I wish I had read this book before "Truck", as it prefaces a lot of events in that one, but what do you do.
Michael Perry's ability to put into words the people, situations and feelings he encounters is beautiful. I love the area he's from, and it reminds me of the time I spent in Warroad, Minnesota. My favorite paragraph describes his predicament of being a dyed-in-the-wool hick from a small town, but also having the heart and mind of a writer:
"I am impeded by restraint. I avoid bar brawls. Heck, I avoid bars. I don't bowl. I can't polka. In New Auburn, this last is bigger than you think. The standards against which you are measured are dependent on the milieu. Go to the cafe for meatloaf, or watch the old men roll dice at the inplement store, and listen:
"He's quite a worker."
"That boy can knock the stuffing out of a softball."
"The man can flat run a wrench."
"His checks are good."
"She's a helluva shot."
Not frequently overheard: "He crafts a lovely metaphor."
He also has a great website: www.sneezingcow.com
I am hoping that he's writing up a storm so I can enjoy more and more.
Michael Perry's ability to put into words the people, situations and feelings he encounters is beautiful. I love the area he's from, and it reminds me of the time I spent in Warroad, Minnesota. My favorite paragraph describes his predicament of being a dyed-in-the-wool hick from a small town, but also having the heart and mind of a writer:
"I am impeded by restraint. I avoid bar brawls. Heck, I avoid bars. I don't bowl. I can't polka. In New Auburn, this last is bigger than you think. The standards against which you are measured are dependent on the milieu. Go to the cafe for meatloaf, or watch the old men roll dice at the inplement store, and listen:
"He's quite a worker."
"That boy can knock the stuffing out of a softball."
"The man can flat run a wrench."
"His checks are good."
"She's a helluva shot."
Not frequently overheard: "He crafts a lovely metaphor."
He also has a great website: www.sneezingcow.com
I am hoping that he's writing up a storm so I can enjoy more and more.
June 17, 2014
A memoir, with distracted focus between life in rural America, working on a small town's volunteer fire department, bachelorhood, and death.
The book lacks a focus. Even a memoir has some kind of focus but this tried to do too much. The humor was strained. Things that I thought ought to be laugh-out-loud funny were only slightly amusing. He didn't seem to know how to set up his jokes efficiently and humorously.
Mostly I found this a bit depressing. So many of the experiences that he writes about seemed to end in death. It sure makes me want to steer clear of New Auburn, Wisconsin.
There are some nice reflections on small town life and death and volunteer work, but it was work. It was not an effortless read. I am not impressed with Michael Perry's writing and won't seek out his other work based on this.
The book lacks a focus. Even a memoir has some kind of focus but this tried to do too much. The humor was strained. Things that I thought ought to be laugh-out-loud funny were only slightly amusing. He didn't seem to know how to set up his jokes efficiently and humorously.
Mostly I found this a bit depressing. So many of the experiences that he writes about seemed to end in death. It sure makes me want to steer clear of New Auburn, Wisconsin.
There are some nice reflections on small town life and death and volunteer work, but it was work. It was not an effortless read. I am not impressed with Michael Perry's writing and won't seek out his other work based on this.
September 29, 2008
Population 485 is Perry’s attempt to communicate what it is like to live in a small town in 21st century America. New Auburn, Wisconsin is the place in question. Perry focuses on his experiences as a volunteer fireman. He was native to the town, had been away for many years, but returned to the roots he knew. His methodology is to relate his personal tales of town life, how his volunteering proved to be a mechanism to further anchor his roots in the community, allowing him to interact with a large number of town residents. I found his anecdotes sometimes moving, but I also found that I was frequently mentally twiddling my thumbs, eager to move on to something a bit more interesting. He offers the occasional memorable line (“puke is the great constant”) and I did, on occasion, laugh out loud. There is payload to be had pertaining to small town history, firefighting and emergency medical care. But I found the overall exercise less than compelling. And while Perry does offer plenty of examples of his failings, I also got the sense that he is rather full of himself, which is off-putting.
October 15, 2016
Boorish. Too much historical information that doesn't really add to the stories. Little used words thrown in as if he is doing a word for the day calendar. Writer's descriptions of small town life and people seemed more like put downs that finding the humor. Read as long as I could. Life is just too short to finish reading.
January 30, 2018
I love everything Michael Perry writes. He makes me laugh. Hard. A lot. I cannot read his books before I go to sleep any more, because my attempts not to laugh out loud thereby waking the husband lead to my shoulders jumping and wake him up, whereupon he thinks Wisconsin has been hit with an earthquake.
This is the story of the little town of New Auburn, Wisconsin's volunteer fire department. The population, as you can tell, is a whopping 485.
Born and raised in the small town, Perry had left years earlier. He got a degree in nursing, worked at some other jobs, and became a humorist. When he comes back more than a decade later, people look at him a little bit oddly, because somewhere along the line, he's forgotten how to fix a truck or can no longer dance the polka. Maybe he never could, but now - well, that's just not acceptable. So - he joins the department to get back into the community. It makes sense as a former nurse and first responder.
Although, as I said, this book is laugh-out-loud funny at times, it's also sweet, tender, and at times, sad. The characters in the town are ones you want as your neighbors. They take care of each other, and it's ok if they know all your business because you know all of theirs too.
I love the book. I love Wisconsin. Pick up this book and settle in for a wonderful read.
This is the story of the little town of New Auburn, Wisconsin's volunteer fire department. The population, as you can tell, is a whopping 485.
Born and raised in the small town, Perry had left years earlier. He got a degree in nursing, worked at some other jobs, and became a humorist. When he comes back more than a decade later, people look at him a little bit oddly, because somewhere along the line, he's forgotten how to fix a truck or can no longer dance the polka. Maybe he never could, but now - well, that's just not acceptable. So - he joins the department to get back into the community. It makes sense as a former nurse and first responder.
Although, as I said, this book is laugh-out-loud funny at times, it's also sweet, tender, and at times, sad. The characters in the town are ones you want as your neighbors. They take care of each other, and it's ok if they know all your business because you know all of theirs too.
I love the book. I love Wisconsin. Pick up this book and settle in for a wonderful read.
May 1, 2017
Having grown up in a small town, I relate so much to what Mr Perry alludes to in this book (and some of his others): citizens in small communities - like New Auburn, Wis. - do it all. They volunteer at church, they serve on the volunteer fire dept., they help their neighbors...
And when bad things happen, the whole community hurts.
I loved the stories of small town living, and the characters he introduces us to.
What I didn't enjoy as much were the occasional diatribes the author wades off into. Not because he's not entitled to them - it is his book, of course he should share opinion and wax nostalgic. But I have always disliked writers who use language for which I have to use my dictionary to understand.
He is a fantastic writer. But the pace of my reading screeches to a halt when he does this and I find myself glossing over those parts.
Nevertheless, I find that Mr Perry's writing really grabs me, and this book is a good read. I'm looking forward to more of his work.
And when bad things happen, the whole community hurts.
I loved the stories of small town living, and the characters he introduces us to.
What I didn't enjoy as much were the occasional diatribes the author wades off into. Not because he's not entitled to them - it is his book, of course he should share opinion and wax nostalgic. But I have always disliked writers who use language for which I have to use my dictionary to understand.
He is a fantastic writer. But the pace of my reading screeches to a halt when he does this and I find myself glossing over those parts.
Nevertheless, I find that Mr Perry's writing really grabs me, and this book is a good read. I'm looking forward to more of his work.
October 16, 2017
I burned (ha-ha) through this in four days. Yes, I liked it that much . . .
The Goodreads description makes the book sound like an episodic collision of TV's Twin Peaks and Emergency!. Really, it's a little deeper than that, with equal parts comedy / tragedy (there are some almost unbearably sad moments) and all the day-to-day happenings in between.
Volunteer first responders, Midwestern small-town life, farming - Perry covers these things and more in a comfortable, conversational style for an adult audience. It's not 'adult' as in an R-rated manner, but aimed at those of us with a decade or so of true adulthood already in our rearview mirror.
The Goodreads description makes the book sound like an episodic collision of TV's Twin Peaks and Emergency!. Really, it's a little deeper than that, with equal parts comedy / tragedy (there are some almost unbearably sad moments) and all the day-to-day happenings in between.
Volunteer first responders, Midwestern small-town life, farming - Perry covers these things and more in a comfortable, conversational style for an adult audience. It's not 'adult' as in an R-rated manner, but aimed at those of us with a decade or so of true adulthood already in our rearview mirror.
August 18, 2013
If you want to read a literary book on firefighting or small town living then this is the book. Population: 485 is a hilarious and moving collection of essays written about New Auburn, Wisconsin; a town of, yes, you guessed it—485 people. Not only is Michael Perry a skilled writer, he is also a volunteer firefighter/emt, and he captures the chaos and insanity of this world beautifully.
Not many firefighters are dedicated to the literary tradition of writing, so it isn’t easy to find such a talented voice to account their day to day lives. Perry is the man. Never have I had more respect for volunteer firefighters than I do now. In New Auburn, rarely are they truly off-duty. They leave work, family, or home at a moment’s notice and even respond to calls alone with no idea of who will show up or when. Regardless of back up, when the beeper goes off Michael Perry goes running, sometimes in spandex cycling shorts, other times in cowboy boots.
The rural landscape has dangers all it’s own: an explosively defecating cow or a clan of suspicious drunk rednecks armed to the hilt in the middle of nowhere. Despite the perils, Perry loves small town living, although he does sometimes get a hankering to take off and roam. He describes in warm detail the denizens of his environs and often accounts their deaths as well. In a town as small as New Auburn, everyone knows everyone, and it’s hard to forget the exact curve of road where your neighbor died.
Death comes with the territory and Perry does not skirt it. He is a man’s man, but with a sensitive side inclined to philosophize and contemplate all that he is witness to. When he’s not skinning deer or traipsing through a swamp hunting duck, he’s hanging out at the local poetry reading. There’s a touch of Hemingway here, although unlike the American Master, Perry is expert at making fun of himself and bringing the “heroes” down to earth. He recounts the foibles, follies, and mishaps of the firefighters who respond in the middle of the night for almost no pay in hilarious detail. One minute Perry had me laughing out loud; the next I was struck silent by his ruminations on death, loss, and the intangible bonds of love that hold the entire town together.
Perry can fight fire AND write. An awesome combination.
Not many firefighters are dedicated to the literary tradition of writing, so it isn’t easy to find such a talented voice to account their day to day lives. Perry is the man. Never have I had more respect for volunteer firefighters than I do now. In New Auburn, rarely are they truly off-duty. They leave work, family, or home at a moment’s notice and even respond to calls alone with no idea of who will show up or when. Regardless of back up, when the beeper goes off Michael Perry goes running, sometimes in spandex cycling shorts, other times in cowboy boots.
The rural landscape has dangers all it’s own: an explosively defecating cow or a clan of suspicious drunk rednecks armed to the hilt in the middle of nowhere. Despite the perils, Perry loves small town living, although he does sometimes get a hankering to take off and roam. He describes in warm detail the denizens of his environs and often accounts their deaths as well. In a town as small as New Auburn, everyone knows everyone, and it’s hard to forget the exact curve of road where your neighbor died.
Death comes with the territory and Perry does not skirt it. He is a man’s man, but with a sensitive side inclined to philosophize and contemplate all that he is witness to. When he’s not skinning deer or traipsing through a swamp hunting duck, he’s hanging out at the local poetry reading. There’s a touch of Hemingway here, although unlike the American Master, Perry is expert at making fun of himself and bringing the “heroes” down to earth. He recounts the foibles, follies, and mishaps of the firefighters who respond in the middle of the night for almost no pay in hilarious detail. One minute Perry had me laughing out loud; the next I was struck silent by his ruminations on death, loss, and the intangible bonds of love that hold the entire town together.
Perry can fight fire AND write. An awesome combination.
July 18, 2008
Perry recounts how he moved back to his very small Wisconsin hometown and reintegrated himself into the community by becoming a volunteer firefighter and first responder. This is an amazing book. The stories Perry tells contain dozens of moments that are both hilarious and heart-wrenching—often within sentences of each other. The details about firefighting and working as an EMT are fascinating, as are the portraits Perry draws of various figures in the community—and of the community itself. He actually made me nostalgic for my tiny hometown—which, although twenty times bigger than Perry’s, still seemed stifling to me when I lived there. Perry’s writing revives in me a sort of innocent belief in American communities, although there’s nothing naïve or whitewashed about his portrayal of his town and its people. Infrastructure crumbles; petty cruelties persist; bad things happen, often to good people. But Perry, it seems, has found whatever secret thing it is that makes it worth it to go on. And there’s a taste of it here between these pages.
August 14, 2021
I love Perry's work, and this is, imo, one of his best. Truck: A Love Story might be even better though. Btw, those of you looking for quirky or amusing would do better to start with something like Roughneck Grace: Farmer Yoga, Creeping Codgerism, Apple Golf, and Other Brief Essays from on and off the Back Forty maybe....
But then you have to bear in mind that (almost) all of Mike's books, together, reference his own (and family's & friends') progression(s) through life and are best understood in the context of sequence of time, and RG is one of the most recent and most autobiographical.
(I obviously need to start that last sentence over from scratch. No time now... if you want to have a go at it, please comment. :)
Edit: two of the newer ones, not yet mentioned here, are the ones I'm most eager to reread: Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy, and The Jesus Cow (one of Mike's few fiction books).
But then you have to bear in mind that (almost) all of Mike's books, together, reference his own (and family's & friends') progression(s) through life and are best understood in the context of sequence of time, and RG is one of the most recent and most autobiographical.
(I obviously need to start that last sentence over from scratch. No time now... if you want to have a go at it, please comment. :)
Edit: two of the newer ones, not yet mentioned here, are the ones I'm most eager to reread: Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy, and The Jesus Cow (one of Mike's few fiction books).
July 29, 2014
I can't believe I've missed this author until now. It's personal history, family dynamics, small-town character, philosophy and humor. Perry writes poetically about his life after returning to his home town. The chapter on "Structure Fire" included several of the passages that struck me in this book: "...fire is anything but brutish. It is light-footed and shamanic, dancing between the visible and invisible, undoing matter one collapsed molecule at a time, wreaking utter destruction with a touch softer than breath. Its poor cousins, wind and water, are one-dimensional rubes by comparison." Gorgeous. Perry can sometimes lay on the philosophizing pretty heaving, but I liked that he calls himself on it too.
March 13, 2009
What a treasure to find this little gem-- quite by accident, I might add, while paging through a sample issue of local magazine that was sent to me.
Perry's thoughtful nature, observations and stories left me laughing out loud (literally), crying and walking away from the finished book with a different view of being "stuck" in Wisconsin. Simply noticing more and enjoying the vast array of people who are here in this cold climate with me.
Perry's thoughtful nature, observations and stories left me laughing out loud (literally), crying and walking away from the finished book with a different view of being "stuck" in Wisconsin. Simply noticing more and enjoying the vast array of people who are here in this cold climate with me.
August 25, 2014
I took this book on my holidays but couldn't get very far into it. It is o.k.,but far from compelling.It sounded so interesting and I really wanted to like it but just couldn't stay with it. I left it on the boat for someone else to maybe enjoy.
April 20, 2020
Michael Perry--still steadfastly single when he wrote this (his author page here states that he lives with his wife and children, so evidently that has changed) and has focused this memoir around his time as a volunteer fire-fighter and paramedic. Each chapter has its own mini-theme as well, but the tie in is the volunteer work. Perry writes very well, but for me some chapters were riveting and some not-so-riveting, so I am giving it a 3 as in I liked this.
What is a mystery to me is why people have shelved this 1. fiction (it is nonfiction and a memoir), 2. mystery (there is no mystery involved in this book) and a few other odd ones. I am guessing that the two people who shelved this philosophy did this because he does touch on his existentialist outlook a number of times, but I wouldn't call this a book of philosophy.
November 29, 2012
This little gem of a book is about New Auburn, in the north-western corner of Wisconsin, land where farms alternate with forests and lakes, where people coexist with deer and the occasional bear. Garrison Keillor's "Lake Wobegon" is a humorous reflection on such a community, and New Auburn is indeed just across the state line from St. Paul, Minnesota. This book, however, is about the real thing. Michael Perry's words are clear, terse, factual and unpretentious, yet he is also a poet, so his book is rich in reflection, beauty, emotion and wider meanings.
Perry grew up on a farm near New Auburn, and trained elsewhere as an emergency medical technician (EMT). After returning to town, still a bachelor, he joined the fire department and rescue squad, in part to help re-integrate with the community. Here is a collection of stories from that association, describing the bond which exists among fire fighters, and between them and their small community. Both men and women participate: the writer's mother is among the active members, as are his two brothers.
The stories are a pleasure to read. Fire fighters and rescue squad members deal with emergencies, and those do not always end happily: the job can be demanding, frustrating and even dangerous. The moment one hears the siren, one is expected to drop whatever one does and rush to the station, because speed is essential, distances can be great out in the country, and in winter the brutal cold makes rescue work even more difficult. At the scene of a fire, one must judge where to enter, what tools to use, when bold steps are called for and when it is wiser to retreat. And with no doctors around, the EMT is often the only source of medical help for a highway accident victim or for an elderly citizen in trouble. A thorough training with a large array of professional tools is expected, because anything the EMT cannot provide requires an airlift by helicopter to a regional hospital. Some lives are saved, some are not, and death is a constant haunting presence.
Yet you will enjoy reading it all. In the big city, amid a teeming population, one can still be very, very lonely. Out in rural Wisconsin, it seems, every life is cherished, every person stands out. Life is neither easy nor simple, but it has a wholesome quality often missing in urban life. If the view from your window is dominated by brick, concrete and asphalt, read "Population 485" and breathe in a fresh atmosphere.
Perry grew up on a farm near New Auburn, and trained elsewhere as an emergency medical technician (EMT). After returning to town, still a bachelor, he joined the fire department and rescue squad, in part to help re-integrate with the community. Here is a collection of stories from that association, describing the bond which exists among fire fighters, and between them and their small community. Both men and women participate: the writer's mother is among the active members, as are his two brothers.
The stories are a pleasure to read. Fire fighters and rescue squad members deal with emergencies, and those do not always end happily: the job can be demanding, frustrating and even dangerous. The moment one hears the siren, one is expected to drop whatever one does and rush to the station, because speed is essential, distances can be great out in the country, and in winter the brutal cold makes rescue work even more difficult. At the scene of a fire, one must judge where to enter, what tools to use, when bold steps are called for and when it is wiser to retreat. And with no doctors around, the EMT is often the only source of medical help for a highway accident victim or for an elderly citizen in trouble. A thorough training with a large array of professional tools is expected, because anything the EMT cannot provide requires an airlift by helicopter to a regional hospital. Some lives are saved, some are not, and death is a constant haunting presence.
Yet you will enjoy reading it all. In the big city, amid a teeming population, one can still be very, very lonely. Out in rural Wisconsin, it seems, every life is cherished, every person stands out. Life is neither easy nor simple, but it has a wholesome quality often missing in urban life. If the view from your window is dominated by brick, concrete and asphalt, read "Population 485" and breathe in a fresh atmosphere.
December 25, 2009
This book is kind of a hybrid. There are plenty of wonderful literary works written on the "essence of small-town American life", both past and present. There are also plenty of gut-wrenching, heart-pumping Fire and EMS books for the adrenaline-junkie who doesn't care to put in a semester at the local JC for an EMT license or Firefighter-I academy (if you want a couple references check out Rescue 471 or Firefighters: Their Lives in Their Own Words, or perhaps the new one coming out soon by Shawn Grady).
This book tries to be a "jack of all trades" and cover both realms at once. Surprisingly, Perry does a pretty damn good job of it, too.
One of the chief complaints I hear/read about this book, though, centers on its dual nature. People were looking for a sorta modern-day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn-sorta "essay on small town America", or perhaps a Midwestern Rehash of Walden, and find jolting scenes from ER, Third Watch, or Rescue Me, thrown in and dissected for flavor. How one can be surprised by this when the by-line is "Meeting your neighbors one siren at a time", I haven't a clue, but apparently at least a few have managed.
As to expecting the tone of the writing to be ... what? "Hick-ish"? "Aw shucks, hyuck-hyuck"? And the subsequent surprise so many show at actual cogent English and coherent sentences... wow. Now I just have to ask, and tell you to ask yourself: is that an issue with Perry...or an issue with you and your preconceived notions?
Rather than blast Perry for not fitting a prejudgment, why don't you just re-examine that prejudice?
Even Perry himself admits in the book to a couple of occasions of trying to "over-intellectualize", and the subsequent figurative face-plant that ensued: the essay he wrote and midway through began a paragraph with "Heraclitus said...", eliciting the groans and dismay of his audience.
In short, it's a glimpse into small-town Midwest America, with an unusual angle... if you're here looking for "heart-pounding ER-style excitement, call-to-call-to-call", you're in the wrong place. Likewise, if you're looking for Walden framed in the midwest, this probably won't be your cuppa joe either. But it's good writing, and good reading, if you can keep your mind open and shoo your expectations of what it SHOULD be away.
This book tries to be a "jack of all trades" and cover both realms at once. Surprisingly, Perry does a pretty damn good job of it, too.
One of the chief complaints I hear/read about this book, though, centers on its dual nature. People were looking for a sorta modern-day Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn-sorta "essay on small town America", or perhaps a Midwestern Rehash of Walden, and find jolting scenes from ER, Third Watch, or Rescue Me, thrown in and dissected for flavor. How one can be surprised by this when the by-line is "Meeting your neighbors one siren at a time", I haven't a clue, but apparently at least a few have managed.
As to expecting the tone of the writing to be ... what? "Hick-ish"? "Aw shucks, hyuck-hyuck"? And the subsequent surprise so many show at actual cogent English and coherent sentences... wow. Now I just have to ask, and tell you to ask yourself: is that an issue with Perry...or an issue with you and your preconceived notions?
Rather than blast Perry for not fitting a prejudgment, why don't you just re-examine that prejudice?
Even Perry himself admits in the book to a couple of occasions of trying to "over-intellectualize", and the subsequent figurative face-plant that ensued: the essay he wrote and midway through began a paragraph with "Heraclitus said...", eliciting the groans and dismay of his audience.
In short, it's a glimpse into small-town Midwest America, with an unusual angle... if you're here looking for "heart-pounding ER-style excitement, call-to-call-to-call", you're in the wrong place. Likewise, if you're looking for Walden framed in the midwest, this probably won't be your cuppa joe either. But it's good writing, and good reading, if you can keep your mind open and shoo your expectations of what it SHOULD be away.
December 16, 2019
There's an amazing sense of community in this small town. Population: 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time. It didn't dawn on me immediately what the title meant. I'd read one of Perry's books previously, Truck, A Love Story It was called.
I took this book in very slow sessions. I don't know what it was but the parts I loved, about the people of this Wisconsin town, the humor, so suddenly interrupted by the calls. How hard it must be to live a life that can be disrupted at the sound of a pager. It's not something I would have ordinarily read, but Perry has insights and ponderings about life and death that show a depth not ordinarily found. Thecharacters real life people he described, people he worked with left me a touch envious for not really knowing people in my small town.
Page 142, I don't even have to look back, or double check. It's where he first summoned the tears. It wasn't the only time. Twice more, I would feel that emotion that lets a person know they are alive, that life is good, there is pain but in the pain, there is goodness. None of us will be spared.
I dog-eared more pages than I should share, so let me pick from them:
"You take what you can get in this life. Someone calls you white trash, you go with it, and fight like hell to keep your trash. You understand it is only a matter of distinctions: yuppies with their shiny trash, church ladies, with their hand-stitched trash, solid sitizens with their secret trash."
Michael Perry writing about his youngest brother, Jed:
"He wanted to farm from the time he could walk, and he's been working at it since grade school. ...He's thirty-one years old now, and into his second decade of fieldwork. He runs his machinery hard and he runs himself hard, going from dawn to dark and beyond. When he's not farming, he's logging, and through the worst stretches of winter, he hires out as a log truck driver. He is a silent grinder and if you try to keep up with him, he will quietly work you into the dirt."
Good man, good family, good community. Good book.
I took this book in very slow sessions. I don't know what it was but the parts I loved, about the people of this Wisconsin town, the humor, so suddenly interrupted by the calls. How hard it must be to live a life that can be disrupted at the sound of a pager. It's not something I would have ordinarily read, but Perry has insights and ponderings about life and death that show a depth not ordinarily found. The
Page 142, I don't even have to look back, or double check. It's where he first summoned the tears. It wasn't the only time. Twice more, I would feel that emotion that lets a person know they are alive, that life is good, there is pain but in the pain, there is goodness. None of us will be spared.
I dog-eared more pages than I should share, so let me pick from them:
"You take what you can get in this life. Someone calls you white trash, you go with it, and fight like hell to keep your trash. You understand it is only a matter of distinctions: yuppies with their shiny trash, church ladies, with their hand-stitched trash, solid sitizens with their secret trash."
Michael Perry writing about his youngest brother, Jed:
"He wanted to farm from the time he could walk, and he's been working at it since grade school. ...He's thirty-one years old now, and into his second decade of fieldwork. He runs his machinery hard and he runs himself hard, going from dawn to dark and beyond. When he's not farming, he's logging, and through the worst stretches of winter, he hires out as a log truck driver. He is a silent grinder and if you try to keep up with him, he will quietly work you into the dirt."
Good man, good family, good community. Good book.
February 3, 2010
At first glance, the concept of reading the tales of a volunteer firefighter in rural Wisconsin seemed an odd choice of reading material for me. However, I decided to give Population: 485 a shot and I was thrilled with the experience. Michael Perry does an excellent job of presenting a cross-section of small-town life through vivid characters and an attention to detail and perspective that I rarely find in modern authors.
Perry's light-hearted humor, self-deprecation, and appreciation of time, place, and setting make this a truly enjoyable read. His recollection of his train of thought while on a late-night jog in mid-winter, or his tale of being summoned by LifeAlert to save an overheated pet goose, or his adventures with his firefighting partner, Bob, the one-eyed Beagle, all add up to a relatable, introspective take on what it means to belong to a place.
For those familiar with life in small-town America, there will no doubt be many "Ahhhh" moments when you can perfectly relate to his experience. However, even for those from the city or completely foreign cultures, this book will give you some perspective on how much people have in common no matter their background. Additionally, it gives life and character to what may seem on the surface to be a boring, deserted little outpost in the middle on nowhere. Perhaps it is the perfect balance, or tension, between Perry's sensitive, bookish, intellectual analysis of rural life and his rough, rugged, dirty overalls experience there that make this book so enjoyable.
Perry's light-hearted humor, self-deprecation, and appreciation of time, place, and setting make this a truly enjoyable read. His recollection of his train of thought while on a late-night jog in mid-winter, or his tale of being summoned by LifeAlert to save an overheated pet goose, or his adventures with his firefighting partner, Bob, the one-eyed Beagle, all add up to a relatable, introspective take on what it means to belong to a place.
For those familiar with life in small-town America, there will no doubt be many "Ahhhh" moments when you can perfectly relate to his experience. However, even for those from the city or completely foreign cultures, this book will give you some perspective on how much people have in common no matter their background. Additionally, it gives life and character to what may seem on the surface to be a boring, deserted little outpost in the middle on nowhere. Perhaps it is the perfect balance, or tension, between Perry's sensitive, bookish, intellectual analysis of rural life and his rough, rugged, dirty overalls experience there that make this book so enjoyable.
June 7, 2009
Favorite quotes:
"Summer here comes on like a zaftig hippie chick, jazzed on chlorophyll and flinging fistfuls of butterflies to the sun."
"I tend to run at night. The idea of running in the morning is repulsive, and I retain strong reservations about anyone who launches their day with briskness of any sort, let alone an alacritous jog."
"Commonalitis of spirit and pretension abound. The man in the Hooters cap and the woman with the NPR tote bag are not promoting restaurants and radio. NRA decals and free Tibet bumber stickers are tools of the proselyte pushing orthodoxy via aphorism. The poet who takes his poems to the coffee shop and the hunter who fakes his buck to the bar are both hoping for approbation and maybe a girl. Crying in your beer is just gazing at your navel, only louder."
"Summer here comes on like a zaftig hippie chick, jazzed on chlorophyll and flinging fistfuls of butterflies to the sun."
"I tend to run at night. The idea of running in the morning is repulsive, and I retain strong reservations about anyone who launches their day with briskness of any sort, let alone an alacritous jog."
"Commonalitis of spirit and pretension abound. The man in the Hooters cap and the woman with the NPR tote bag are not promoting restaurants and radio. NRA decals and free Tibet bumber stickers are tools of the proselyte pushing orthodoxy via aphorism. The poet who takes his poems to the coffee shop and the hunter who fakes his buck to the bar are both hoping for approbation and maybe a girl. Crying in your beer is just gazing at your navel, only louder."
August 1, 2020
I love my adopted state more because of this book. Perry artfully tells of life in a small Wisconsin town and the delicate dance of both being aware of and even participating in “higher society” and yet living among common people; loving country music, fishing, and firefighters but also five-star dining in NYC, modern dance, and literature. He’s also a master of humorous descriptions of common people and their actions in the grand tradition of Twain, Thurber, and and I belly laughed constantly throughout.
April 25, 2009
I abandoned this book four chapters in.
This kind of read like a poorly curated blog republishment. The chapters are too long, the anecdotes per chapter are too short and too scattered.
Also: Mr. Perry, some of us in the Emergency Medical profession are sympathy heavers. Your smug pride about not being one was what finally made me put the book down.
This kind of read like a poorly curated blog republishment. The chapters are too long, the anecdotes per chapter are too short and too scattered.
Also: Mr. Perry, some of us in the Emergency Medical profession are sympathy heavers. Your smug pride about not being one was what finally made me put the book down.
March 11, 2020
I first read this book in 2006 and made this note: one of the most perfectly written memoirs I’ve ever read. I feel the same way this time through. Perry is a fabulous writer in every sense of the word - he lacks pretension, his stories are interesting and heartfelt, and the prose is simply gorgeous. Love love love this book.
Read
February 15, 2018Although numerous people have told me that Truck: A Love Story is the better of these books, I was charmed by Population: 485. It's small-town Wisconsin with all the quirks and tragedies and some laugh-out-loud moments I needed right now.
August 24, 2021
This equally hilarious and poignant memoir has given me a new appreciation for the difficult and vital work performed by small- town EMTs and firefighters.
September 7, 2025
As a newly transplanted small town woman from the big city, it’s refreshing to be able to compare these stories and people to those I see everyday. It gives me a new respect for those in my Wisconsin town serving on the volunteer fire and rescue squad.
I have to admit, I found myself slowing in interest due to the anecdotes of history and science. Despite appreciating the facts and context, I’ve always had difficulty remaining attentive to areas like that. I also found the use of language and vocabulary to be somewhat distracting and wondered if it got in the way of the stories being told.
Overall, I liked the book and found the ending to be sobering to the reality of life in general and the importance of our roots and relationships.
I have to admit, I found myself slowing in interest due to the anecdotes of history and science. Despite appreciating the facts and context, I’ve always had difficulty remaining attentive to areas like that. I also found the use of language and vocabulary to be somewhat distracting and wondered if it got in the way of the stories being told.
Overall, I liked the book and found the ending to be sobering to the reality of life in general and the importance of our roots and relationships.
March 25, 2023
"We spend this life looking for a center, a place where we can suspend without a wobble. The specific coordinates are elusive, scalable only by the heart." p.202
Small-town Wisconsin life.
Meeting neighbors one siren at a time.
Perry uses the opera Götterdämmerung to depict a sunset and the terra-cotta army from the Chinese Qin Dynasty to postulate what might be under the sunken holes in his backyard.
Highly recommend listening to the audiobook because Perry's vocabulary is off the chart.
Excellent, excellent read/listen.
Small-town Wisconsin life.
Meeting neighbors one siren at a time.
Perry uses the opera Götterdämmerung to depict a sunset and the terra-cotta army from the Chinese Qin Dynasty to postulate what might be under the sunken holes in his backyard.
Highly recommend listening to the audiobook because Perry's vocabulary is off the chart.
Excellent, excellent read/listen.
November 11, 2023
Population 485 by Michael Perry
This book was recommended to me, a few times, by my mother. On the surface I could see why. A small town midwestern guy who enjoys literature and decides to become a first responder. Okay. I’ll get to it. I was raised well enough to listen to my mother, so I gave it a crack. I was expecting to enjoy it. She has excellent taste after all. I don’t know why but I didn’t really expect to connect to the book on a deep level. I also didn’t expect a book about a small town firefighter to talk about the Pleistocene Epoch when describing the topography of the region and relate the contoured countryside to a particularly hazardous bend in the road that lead to a traffic fatality and it’s impact on the small rural community.
Community is the keyword here. Mr. Perry is a volunteer firefighter for a small town. We also learn how the town came to this name including a humorous tale of the founder’s disagreement with the township permitting the sale of alcohol and asking that his name be removed and the other city leaders discovering that the town name of Auburn had recently been claimed by a nearby hamlet leading to the very original “New Auburn.” The sense of the town comes through in the pages and it’s inhabitants. Mr. Perry recounts historical records where the township appears to haggle for the purchase of a firefighting apparatus and although the acquisition is a foregone conclusion he attests that the small town folk know they are rubes but don’t’ want to be taken for rubes. He also discusses the modern occupants of the town. The standout is fellow volunteer firefighter “The Beagle” who is a cross eyed butcher who’s country styled aphorisms are as sharp as his instruments of slaughter.
The author bio on the cover informs the reader that Mr. Perry is the only volunteer firefighter to have missed a monthly meeting for a poetry reading. He incorporates literary allusion and poetry throughout the book which on a few occasions felt a little shoehorned in. Occasionally the book dips into the history of firefighting in general or goes down rabbit holes of township history in the midst of a different story or rumination about the frailty of human life. I think in lesser hands this would have been more distracting or disorienting but was well done here, if noticeable in the divergence.
I’d recommend this as an enjoyable read, small town rube or otherwise.
This book was recommended to me, a few times, by my mother. On the surface I could see why. A small town midwestern guy who enjoys literature and decides to become a first responder. Okay. I’ll get to it. I was raised well enough to listen to my mother, so I gave it a crack. I was expecting to enjoy it. She has excellent taste after all. I don’t know why but I didn’t really expect to connect to the book on a deep level. I also didn’t expect a book about a small town firefighter to talk about the Pleistocene Epoch when describing the topography of the region and relate the contoured countryside to a particularly hazardous bend in the road that lead to a traffic fatality and it’s impact on the small rural community.
Community is the keyword here. Mr. Perry is a volunteer firefighter for a small town. We also learn how the town came to this name including a humorous tale of the founder’s disagreement with the township permitting the sale of alcohol and asking that his name be removed and the other city leaders discovering that the town name of Auburn had recently been claimed by a nearby hamlet leading to the very original “New Auburn.” The sense of the town comes through in the pages and it’s inhabitants. Mr. Perry recounts historical records where the township appears to haggle for the purchase of a firefighting apparatus and although the acquisition is a foregone conclusion he attests that the small town folk know they are rubes but don’t’ want to be taken for rubes. He also discusses the modern occupants of the town. The standout is fellow volunteer firefighter “The Beagle” who is a cross eyed butcher who’s country styled aphorisms are as sharp as his instruments of slaughter.
The author bio on the cover informs the reader that Mr. Perry is the only volunteer firefighter to have missed a monthly meeting for a poetry reading. He incorporates literary allusion and poetry throughout the book which on a few occasions felt a little shoehorned in. Occasionally the book dips into the history of firefighting in general or goes down rabbit holes of township history in the midst of a different story or rumination about the frailty of human life. I think in lesser hands this would have been more distracting or disorienting but was well done here, if noticeable in the divergence.
I’d recommend this as an enjoyable read, small town rube or otherwise.
March 16, 2018
Michael Perry tells the story of returning to the small town he grew up in. He joins the local fire department while learning about the history of the town through talking to people who have lived their the longest.
New Auburn stands between the borders of Barron and Chippewa counties in northwest Wisconsin. I remember in 7th grade our teachers told us that the school was in a different county then the village.
I was finishing up my final years at New Auburn High School when this book hit the market. Perry spoke at our school and talked about the importance of reading. I ignored it and continued to play video games instead. The teacher he thanks in the book would be very upset to hear that.
I recall a chapter in this book where Perry talks about mnemonics. His science teacher taught him the phrase " On Old Olympic Towering Tops A Fin And German Viewed Some Hops". Each beginning letter represents a very long medical term. I can guess who is science teacher was but I tried to use the six P's to write this review. That got burned into my skull multiple times.
It was nice reading a book where locations are familiar. I have walked through New Auburn on Earth Day Cleanups, FFA events, and field trips. I enjoyed the stories, although some of them are rather long or get to detailed in information. 3.5/5
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